Month: October 2021
The last lone bee of the season
caresses the flowers of autumn,
dusting the late pollen
leaving us a legacy,
a final squeeze of nectar.
The leaves turn gently,
a golden and red canopy of grandeur.
a delicious carpet of rustic colour
forming flightpath lights
guiding the bee to her winter resting place.
Will there be honey still for tea?
[Mr. G]
October 2021
St Teresa of Avila : God is found in our ordinary lives.
A reflection for her festival Day, October 15th.
TERESA of Avila was often referred to as God’s Gadbout because she spent a lot of her energy in founding convents of nuns throughout Spain in the 16th century. She was forever on the move and yet she is remembered best for her teaching about Prayer and particularly about Contemplative prayer which requires stillness. No matter how busy she was – and she was very busy – she made sure her heart was constantly fixed on God, whom she referred to as Your Majesty. God for her was very near. Indeed she coined a famous phrase – ‘God walks among the pots and pans’. We find God in the ordinariness of life, and if we train ourselves to recognize that, we shall meet Him in the everyday events of our lives and in the people we meet. This is about finding Heaven in Ordinary.
Teresa believed that God was within us as well as beside us, and here she took up our Lord’s own teaching that the Kingdom of God is within us. We encounter Him in the silent depths of our hearts.
You know that God is everywhere, she says, which is a great truth; wherever God dwells there is heaven, and you may feel sure that all which is glorious is near His Majesty.
Then she refers to St Augustine who sought God in many places and at last found the Almighty within himself. We don’t need to go to heaven to find God, she says, We are not forced to take wings to find Him, but have only to seek solitude and to look within ourselves.
She calls this seeking God in solitude within ourselves, the prayer of Recollection – or Contemplation. In her work Interior Castle she develops this using the imagery of a King in his Palace.
Let us realize that we have within us a most splendid palace built entirely of gold and precious stones – in short, one that is fit for such a Lord – and that we are partly responsible for the condition of this building, because there is no structure so beautiful as the soul full of pure virtues, and the more perfect these virtues are, the more brilliantly do the jewels shine
What we find in this Palace is the mighty King who, she says, has deigned to become your Father and Who is seated on a throne of precious value, by which I mean your heart.
Realizing this took her quite a while.:
Had I understood always, as I do now, that so great a King resided in my soul I should not have left Him alone so often, but should have stayed with Him sometimes and not kept His dwelling place in such disorder.
For Teresa, then, it is when we enter into silence and spend a little time with God in our hearts, that the soul makes progress in the prayer. God becomes the centre of our being, always to be found when we still the voices of the world that claim so much of our attention!
Teresa says that it is only through silence that we can encounter the love of God and receive it into our hearts. God is very near. We should seek him within. He is much closer to us than we might imagine.
We are not ordinary to Him who loves us and who calls us to be near to His heart.
Of course, it is when we recognize this that we can actually discover that we are quite extraordinary!
The two photographs could represent our looking inwards to God as the heart of our prayer (top)
and looking out as we inhabit the world with God’s love.
We are sent out to find God in the ordinary or, where we find it lacking, we can take note of what
Teresa’s great spiritual friend, St John of the Cross once said:
“Where there is no love, put love in and you will draw love out.”
[Mr. G]
A Prayer of St Teresa
(often known as Teresa’s bookmark. It was found in her prayer book after her death)
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing;
God only is changeless.
Patience gains all things.
Who has God wants nothing.
God alone suffices.
This Photo is from my friend Joyce Smith. “Here is a picture of my unexpected visitor who arrived on my garden fence the other morning. My books suggest she is a red-legged Partridge who may have flew down from Upshire. With my love and prayers. Joyce.
Joyce notes that it is a rare visitor to her garden so an unexpected surprise.
Her chosen caption is As each new day dawns, let us be open to the joy of the unexpected.
Reflection on this took me into the area of hospitality, both in the giving and receiving of it. My natural starting point for this is the Rule of St. Benedict in which he wrote:
All visitors who call are to be welcomed as if they were Christ, for he will one day say: I was a stranger and you took me in (Mt 25).
Benedict then sets down how guests should be received and how they should be treated. Others in the monastic tradition have similar approaches to receiving guests as reflections of Jesus.
No doubt they were mindful of what the epistle to the Hebrews calls entertaining angels unawares – without knowing it. (Hb 13:1)
By extension the seeing of Christ in others is commended to all of us who profess the Christian faith (and is something other religions express too, in their own way). The general thought is that we are to see Christ in each other because we are striving to be Christ-like and so reflect him in who we are.
That’s not always easy to do. The red legged Partridge is very beautiful and we can easily see that she is a reflection of the breathtaking beauty of Creation. I’m think that if she had been a magpie (or even worse, a wasp!) I might have found it more difficult.
It’s the same with some humans too, though those who seek to find goodness and beauty in people will no doubt succeed.
It was a short hop in my thinking to consider the plight of the refugees. At present because of the conflicts in our world, there are many seeking shelter and safety. Through absolutely no fault of their own they are arriving in other places from their own countries. They have lost everything. They are, our unexpected visitors. How do we welcome them?
The numbers are overwhelming and it is hard for us not to be fearful and protective of our way of life. They are different in some ways in culture and even have differing values though we can all learn so much from each other if we but listen and share love.
The immediate group of ‘visitors’ , are the boat people, crossing the channel in dangerous and life-threatening conditions.
When I was thinking of their plight, other ‘boat people’, who fled their own country came to mind. They too travelled across a difficult sea, seeking a less harsh way of life. I speak of the flood of Irish immigrants to America and England in the 18th and 19th centuries, either driven out by the Great Famine, or political upheaval. Amongst them were some direct relatives of mine.
Other ‘boat people’ were the Windrush generation, much more recently. Actually, because we live on an Island, most of our ancestors came by boat to dwell here.
They were either conquerors like the Romans, Vikings, Danes or they were part of the great trek which brought tribes in waves along the Indo-European trail. (I draw a veil over the many lands which have been harshly occupied by others who thirsted for dominance, exploitation and power!)
Today, of course it is Syrians, Lebanese, Afghans, people from Yemen as well as some Africans, who are on the move. Our planet has always been a nomadic place and few of us can say that our ancestors and even our compatriots were settled people. The people who can claim true British descent are probably only those in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall and that area from which we take our name, Brittany.
Somehow the rest of us sort of landed up here as unexpected visitors.
Sadly, many asre currently unwanted.
I’m just grateful, on behalf of my family past and present, that we didn’t have people in authority whose treatment of the various boat people has little to show St Benedict and others that we really do welcome people as if they were Christ.
So I thank Joyce for giving me some hope. Her unexpected visitor can serve to open our hearts to another, more kind and caring approach. Joyce welcomed this stranger with Joy. There was also delight because, like all visitors the Partridge brought a gift. She came with a beautiful reminder of the joy of God’s creation. We even see the pinky-red flowers behind her which forms a nature-filled welcome. If we pause, embrace the moment, give thanks for the ‘otherness’, then we might just catch a glimpse of what the poet Gerald Manly Hopkins calls the grandeur of God.
If we seek to find that grandeur of God, maybe dazzlingly, maybe dimly, we will take a step towards meeting Him in others and in Nature. That perception can itself mightily change our world. I say ‘our’ world but I end with saying: Thank You to the red-legged Partridge for popping by to share her World with us.
[Mr. G]
This week I have been reflecting on St. Francis whose feast day was last Monday.
His love of the poor, of creation and those with incurable diseases makes him quite a contemporary saint. In these worrying times about the state of the planet and the way we are treating the poor in Britain as well as in the Third World, Francis has much to say to us as a warning. The prevalence and threat of Covid on a global scale may seem much greater than the people with leprosy but it is the reaching out with compassion and kindness, touching people where people suffer which is part of his great message of love and inclusivity for all.For Frances all creation praises God from Brother Sun to Sister Moon, from all who have little to the very wealthy, from death to eternal life.
He also taught of God with deep simplicity and we are grateful to him for the way he taught the Incarnation not in theological treatise but visually by inventing the Christmas Crib.
One of the most popular images is of him is feeding the birds and his praise of all creation is, for many, embedded in that image.
The fact that we know these stories, along with many other popular anecdotes, miracles, and events is because they were published as a collection titled, The Little Flowers of St. Francis.
Written or collected quite a while after his death, and therefore not a primary source for his life, it nevertheless captures and presents a spirit which is truly Franciscan.
The collection became deeply popular and it has been described as one of the most delightful literary works of the Middle Ages.
It was translated into Italian by an unknown Franciscan friar, from a much larger work. It has 53 short chapters and is often printed with The Mirror of Perfection, a reflection from Brother Leo, a special companion of Francis, in which he illustrates the distinctiveness of Franciscan life and spirituality.
Leo draws on the personal experience of life as one of the first of the Friars.
The Little Flowers sheds a light on the way Francis and his Companions (with St.Clare and those who prayed with her), paved the way for an imitation of the Franciscan way of life, witness and spirituality which continues to enrich both church and world today.
There are many, many editions of The Little Flower and it is easily available.
So, I want to end my week of personal reflection with a story from the Little Flowers.
It has something profound to say to most of us, I suspect:
Francis and a companion once visited the home of a rich man, late in the evening. The nobleman welcomed them with open arms and, we are told, received them as if they had been angels of God, with courtesy and devotion.
The man embraced them, washed their feet, wiped them and humbly kissed them. He kindled a fire, made ready the table with much food and served it with a joyful countenance.
He then prepared beds and offered many gifts. In the morning, he provided fresh clothing. If the brothers needed clothing, he would always pay for it. He professed that he was ready to provide for all their needs. He could do this because of all that God had provided him. He willingly would give of this to the poor.
The man, having done such a lovely thing also rejoiced and prayed for Francis.When Francis left him with great rejoicing he held the man in his heart and in his prayers.
Francis knew however that there was more. He had looked into his eyes and had not rested until he saw into his soul.
He said to his companion, “He would make a good friar. He is so grateful and thankful to God and so kind and courteous to his neighbour and to the poor.”
He reminded his brother that courtesy is one of the attributes of God who gives us all we need and is courteous and kind and loving towards us. These things he found in the man’s soul – the divine imprint.
Francis determined to return again soon to his house.
When Francis re-visited the area he called on the man again.
First, he knelt in prayer at the gate.
The man saw him and rushed down the drive to kneel besides Francis.
God was speaking to both their hearts and Francis lifted him up, and ‘in fervour and gladness of heart embraced him and kissed him, devoutly giving thanks to God,’ who had brought to him a new friar.
The man asked, ‘what do you command me to do, my father? Lo I am ready to do your bidding and give all I possess to the poor and thus, no longer held back by worldly things, to follow Christ with you.’
And so he did.
The nobleman had given out of the generosity of his heart and his means when Francis first visited him. He gave so much for the mission of Jesus Christ being carried out by Francis and his companions. But for him, there was something missing. Something he still had to give.The only gift that God truly wants from any and all of us. He gave himself. He joined Francis in his work. He gave his heart, his soul.
Make of this story what you will.
[Mr G]
Mr G's Ponderings 