Pearls!

And then Juan Diego climbed the little hill, and when he reached the top, he marveled at how many flowers were spread out there, their blossoms were open, flowers of every kind, lovely and beautiful, like those of Castille, when it was not yet their season because it was when the frost was worst. The flowers were giving off an extremely soft fragrance, like precious pearls, as if filled with the night’s dew. Right away he began to cut them, gathered them all and put them in the hollow of his tilma. The top of the little hill was certainly not a place in which any flowers grew, because it was rocky, there were burs, thorny plants, prickly pear, and an abundance of mesquite bushes. And though some small grasses might grow, it was then the month of December, in which the ice eats everything up and destroys it. (Nican Mopohua, no. 127-133)

My daughters are both named from margarita, which means "pearl" and I never noticed that detail in the appartition account until now. How sweet!

Well, if it's just a cymbal

Amy Welborn highlights a quote that speaks of the Land of Grief:

Also – we always focus on the “to hell with it” part, but to me, the last part of O’Connor’s telling is just as powerful.

….this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside a story…

Rereading that letter just now, I was struck hard by the succinct truth of another sentence, her description of another encounter, a phrasing that encapsulates not only the worldview of so many of her characters – before they are struck by grace, that is – and, well, us, right?

Most of them live in a world God never made.

You could take that in different ways: In their view, the existence of the world has nothing to do with God…or the life they lead – their priorities, the structures of their lives – are human, skewed creations, glittering and entertaining Towers of Babel?

It reinforces for me a sentiment that dogs me tirelessly, that I no longer want to live in this world, and to some degree, I never really have. It holds no more lustre. 

St. Louis the Widower

from The Register: 

After the death of his wife, Louis lived on to raise his daughters, moving them to Lisieux to be near relatives. He found refuge in the joys of his family life, while remembering the hours he spent holding his dying, suffering wife in his arms.

“Everything which I have seen is grand, but it is still the beauty of the earth, and one’s heart remains unsatisfied until it beholds the joy of the infinite beauty that is God. We shall soon have the joy of being together again. It is the beauty of family life that comes nearest to Heaven.” (Rev. Fr. Stéphane-Joseph Piat, O.F.M., Story of a Family, p. 315)

As a widower, Louis spent much of his day in prayer and reading in his room in the attic that overlooked the garden which he tended himself. He kept up his habit of daily Mass and frequent Communion, and loved his afternoon walk with Thérèse. In the evening, he would read aloud and discuss from spiritual works other writings with his daughters.

from the Irish Carmelites:

Death of Zélie

In December 1876, when Thérèse was three, Zélie Martin discovered that the ‘fibrous tumour’ in her breast was inoperable. Marie, Pauline and Léonie accompanied their ill mother to Lourdes the following June and Zélie died on August 28th 1877, at the age of 46. Having consulted his older daughters, Louis decided in November 1877 to move the family to Lisieux, in Normandy, in order to be near his brother-in-law, Isidore Guerin, who ran a pharmacy there. Thérèse became very attached to her father after her mother’s death, and it was through him that she first became aware of the Carmelites: “Each afternoon I went with him for a walk and made a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in one or other of the churches. It was in this way that I first saw the chapel of our Carmel: ‘Look, little Queen,’ my father said, ‘behind that grating there are holy nuns who are praying to Almighty God’ … those were supremely happy days when my dear ‘King’, as I called him, went fishing and took me with him. Sometimes I tried my hand with a small rod, but more often I preferred to sit on the grass at some little distance. My reflections would then become really deep and without knowing what meditation meant, my soul was absorbed in prayer … earth seemed a land of exile and I dreamed of heaven.”

Illness and Death of Louis

Thérèse entered the Carmel in Lisieux on April 9th 1888, at the age of 15. Her sister Marie made her final profession in that Carmel about six weeks later, on May 22nd and, about a month later, their father, Louis, went missing and was only found four days later in Le Havre, suffering from amnesia because of a cerebral arteriosclerosis. As her father’s mental health declined, Thérèse completed her postulancy, taking the same Carmelite habit as her elder sisters, Marie and Pauline, on January 10th 1889. A month after attending the first profession of Thérèse, Louis Martin, at the age of 65, was committed to the Bon-Sauveur private mental asylum in Caen, where he was to remain for over three years. When Louis left the asylum in Caen in May 1892, the lease on Les Buissonnets had expired and he went to live on the estate of his in-laws, the Guérins, at La Musse, near Evreux. He was paralyzed and had difficulty speaking and he died two years later, on July 29th 1894, at the age of 71.

_________________________________
When a catastrophe shakes our lives and our surroundings, everything may seem disproportionate and unfair.  But whatever happens, let us remain in the just judgment, the right state of soul. Always have an attitude of listening to the other. Let us keep intact our ability to give, to offer, even if God seems to take back what God seemed to give in a mysterious relationship of the heart. The offering of ourselves should be our ideal for life, supported by Charity, the great theological virtue. Louis and Zelie Martin gave everything. They offered everything without reservation, and sowed in the hope of reaping their harvest in the heavenly kingdom. Are we able to sow and harvest, to wait with patience and with humility? Agree to remain as a little child in the hand of the Father. Are you not already accepting His blessing? https://www.louisandzeliemartin.org/novena-to-martin-spouses-3

Let us not be tempted to escape, to retreat, to become bitter in a struggle against what appears to be unfair. Our pain should be shared with others, offered up at any time, but it is really beyond our earthly comprehension. For beyond all suffering emerges acceptance of grace, of recognizing ourselves as children of God in Jesus Christ, and, therefore, to be recognized as sons and daughters of God. If we cannot remember,  let the tears come, because they are always nourishing and are the fruit of the Spirit. Any form of desire without suffering can be understood as an illusion of love. The suffering experienced and accepted by the great Saints is a school for everyone, but we never consider suffering as an end in itself. If our weakness is our strength, compassion at the foot of the cross no longer appears as a weakness, but as an expectation, a silent hope.https://www.louisandzeliemartin.org/novena-to-martin-spouses-5

https://www.louisandzeliemartin.org/a-novena-to-blessed-louis-and-zelie-martin

St. Louis the Widower

I am discovering several sweet parallels between the story of Louis & Zelie and my own story of being in love with Amy. 

For example, they fell in love on a bridge, and Amy and I had our first kiss on a bridge:

These two craftsmen, the clock-maker and the lace-maker, lived in different parishes, and their families were not acquainted. The two did not know one another. They waited. How they met one fine day on St. Leonard’s bridge, like Joachim and Anne at the Golden Gate; how he made way for her, and she passed him; how they looked at one another; how Zélie recognized unerringly that this was the companion intended for her by God: all this is a secret that Heaven has kept well.We only know that there was mutual understanding and delight, that the families met, and that the two were married.  https://catholicexchange.com/sts-louis-zelie-martin-holiness-marriage-endurance/

Amy and I taught the importance of trustful surrender in our marriage preps for engaged couples, and the Martins abided fully in that teaching: 

Louis and his wife surrendered so well that in the face of great suffering, they uttered in union Mary’s Fiat. In the space of three years, Louis would bury four of his children... In the face of great sorrow, Louis, instead of curling up in isolation, stepped forward in courage to be the pillar of support to his wife and his family. Providing the comfort, strength and assurance they needed to tide through the rough waves. He always directed them to God and assured them that God was with them through their sorrows and had a glorious plan for them.https://virtueofwisdom-com.medium.com/the-extraordinary-in-the-ordinary-st-louis-martin-78ccc4963009

In their home on the Rue Saint-Blaise, he would put aside his career to support her work, and in Alpena, I became stay-at-home dad so that Amy could be the breadwinner. 

After becoming a widower, Louis continued to husband in their domestic church: 

Yet his feminine side was well developed. When he was left a single parent, he became both father and mother to his daughters, who said “our father’s affectionate heart was enriched with a truly maternal love for us.” Many days he escorted the girls to and from school, listening patiently to the accounts of their days. Every evening he joined them after supper in their little salon, making toys for them, singing to them, telling them stories, reciting poems, and playing games before family prayers.  " I am the Bobillon [that is, tender and kindly] with my children," he would say. https://www.louisandzeliemartin.org/blessed-louis-and-zelie-martin-blog/2009/6/20/blessed-louis-martin-the-incomparable-father-of-st-therese-o.html

Louis, also a third child, had at first discerned a vocation to the religious life of a monk, as did I, and had to become "resigned to disappointment," a feeling very familiar to me when trying to discern God's path for my life. I certainly didn't expect to be raising four children on my own. How can I hope to live as holy a life as he did? Detachment:

Louis firmly believed that everything in his life was a product of God’s grace. He knew that God, far from being a detached, angry and distant party, was a God who watched over him and his family with love. Together with his wife, he acknowledged that it was God’s hand in the great graces of their lives: Their success in work and family. Whenever a serious decision proved to be providentially judicious, they thanked God, knowing that He had been inspiring and guiding them. God was too close to not be interested in them.

However, following his successes, he knew full well of the allure of idolatry that worldly success could bring. Thus, in the spirit of asceticism, to be more perfectly in union with Christ, he chose simple, discreet but firm asceticism as a means of detachment.

He restricted himself from smoking, drinking between meals, and moving closer to the fire unless necessary. In his travels, he always chose third class and ate poor quality bread that was generally meant for the poor. These simple sacrifices, although are not the ends in themselves, provided St Louis with a detachment from material things.

Amy and I were only married 15 years, and we had been best friends for 8 years prior. Our time united in this life was short, and Amy passed in her early 40s, as did Zelie. I will be praying the Novena in honor of St. Louis Martin, my heroic example of being a holy widower:

At age 45, Zelie developed breast cancer. She continued to trust in God as she suffered, despite feeling reluctant to leave her family behind. She eventually died from the disease, when she and Louis had been married for nineteen years. Louis continued on alone in the task of raising his children to be holy, staying faithful himself and remaining thankful that God had given him nineteen years of joy with Zelie.Saints Louis and Zelie Martin’s Feast Day: July 12

Read more at: https://www.praymorenovenas.com/saints-louis-and-zelie-martin-novena

“If the Good Lord wants to heal me, I will be very happy, because deep down, I want to live; it costs me to leave my husband and my children. But on the other hand, I say to myself: if I do not get well, it is because it will perhaps be more useful for them to go away ”-ZELIE MARTIN

https://www.therese-de-lisieux.catholique.fr/en/lhistoire/histoire-louis-zelie/

Husbandry

With the passing of my wife, I consider myself a widower and no longer a husband; yet some have said that I continue to be a good husband in the care I give to my children. This article has me mulling over the meaning of Husbandry: https://life-craft.org/husbandry-and-rethinking-a-mans-bond-with-his-wife/

Wendell Berry has pointed this out.

“The word husbandry is the name of a connection. In its original sense, it is the name of the work of a domestic man, a man who has accepted a bondage to the household.”

So much here to consider. Husbandry is connection. When a man marries, the primary ‘connection’ in his life should be to his wife. But this connection is part of a web of connections, a web centered in a home they make together. Indeed, because a man binds himself to his wife, he also binds himself to their common home, their shared place in the world. If we unhinge the man from the broader web of connection then we threaten the original, root connection. And we also threaten the other things that call for and indeed demand a husband’s attention.

Berry offers this characterization of husbandry: “it is the art of keeping tied all the strands in the living network that sustains us.” This might seem abstract and a bit wide of the mark; I think rather it goes to the heart of rediscovering and healing masculinity, or more to the point—to healing men; and marriage; and the home.

A true husband tries to keep tied together many things that need to be kept together. Husbandry is a wonderfully vast enterprise that takes care of people, and so takes care of many ‘things’ in human life. A husband in the fullest sense is a man who has fallen in love with a woman, and then discovers that his love for her calls him to that vast enterprise, an enterprise calling for amazing, concrete applications. Imagine a world in which the concrete arts of life are driven by married love! It is always a matter of love, and love brings things together. A married man discovers that his first love does not narrow his life. Rather, by a deep magic the maturation of that love expands his heart, his vision, and the work of his hands to encompass more than he could have imagined.

In short, the seeming ‘ambiguity’ of the word husband points to a great truth: the arts of taking care of material things (in which the land has a unique but certainly not exclusive place) are closely tied to marriage. Somehow a man’s being a husband to his wife—which again is the foundational commitment—calls him to a broader and deeply embodied husbandry. We can rediscover and rethink this husbandry and how to enact it today–first of all for the sake of our marriages. And then for most everything else too.

I feel that bondage, in the sense that I realize any wanderlust that has sprung from my grief has to fall silent compared to the needs of my children and my obligation to raise them well, which means mitigating changes, which means staying in our home, maintaining the place of connection.

Land of Grief

The scope of my grief is a distance and depth I haven't even fathomed. It feels like a foreign land, or rather, it makes me feel like a foreigner here in this world.

This audience from Pope Francis is a comfort, reminding me that the Ruah breath of the Spirit will move over the formless void in my loss and move me to a place where I have sure footing once more. 

"The Spirit of God appears to us here as the mysterious power that moves the world from its initial formless, deserted, and gloomy state to its ordered and harmonious state. Because the Spirit makes harmony, harmony in life, harmony in the world. In other words, it is He who makes the world pass from chaos to the cosmos, that is, from confusion to something beautiful and ordered. "

On paradigms and Prudence

 https://veritasamoris.org/a-paradigm-shift-from-veritatis-splendor-to-amoris-laetitia

The law is also a burden because I am also a sinner: redeemed, but still bearing the marks and consequences of concupiscence, in an arduous path of healing. The law is also a “no”; it also has an external aspect that must gradually mature toward the interiorization of virtue. The law also has an aspect of light: the virtues are “arma lucis—weapons of light” that illuminate reason (virtuous connaturality) and show the correspondence of our actions with the true good, which is what desire itself seeks. As the virtues are formed, the weight of the external character of the law decreases and the freedom to do good increases. It is therefore necessary not to neglect the law that exhorts and forbids. In this way the subject matures.

...

What is needed is a formation of the subject that takes into account the originality of practical reason. It is not just a matter of teaching, but of facilitating the formation of virtues. Freedom and truth go together, in a one-to-one correspondence: without truth one is not free; and without freedom one cannot access truth.

How is the Christian subject born? How is the Christian subject generated, or rather regenerated? To be born again: this is the question of Nicodemus. “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” (Jn 3:4). It is not only a question of the formation of conscience (in the cognitive dimension), as modern scholastic or neo-scholastic morality had it, which understood formation as the ability to make correct rational judgments. Rather, moral formation is about growing in the virtues, especially in prudence, as the virtue that perfects practical reason, which aims not only at judgment but also and above all at the ability to choose and to act.

Prudence is the virtue that enlightens and promotes the making of choices and the carrying out of actions. It is rooted in virtuous affective dispositions that are well-ordered according to reason. Indeed, without the moral virtues there can be no prudence; without them there will be only cunning. Conversely, without prudence there can be no true moral virtues; without it there will be only mechanical habits. Virtue is a habitus electivus: a disposition to choose the suitable good, predisposing not the object of choice (id quod eligitur) but the excellent way of choosing it (id cuis gratia eligitur). It is a virtue and not a habit: it makes one freer and not less free. It aims at choice and does not remove the need to choose.

snuggle

 do whatever is within your power to spread devotion to My mercy. I will make up for what you lack. Tell aching mankind to snuggle close to My merciful Heart, and I will fill it with peace (Diary, 1074).

The Croagh

Mountain Climbing is a significant motif throughout salvation history, according to this.

My climb up the Croagh Patrick in Ireland certainly bears that out. 

At various points I felt united to Christ in the Via Crucis, it became a metaphor for my Grief, and it reminded me very much of a Labyrinth walk. I was climbing St. Patrick's mountain on St. Jospeh's day, thinking very much about St. Peter the Rock, and several other holy men and women. 

verse 4

 from the hymn by John Montgomery:

Early hasten to the tomb,
where they laid his breathless clay.
All is solitude and gloom-
Who has taken him away?
Christ is risen! He meets our eyes.
Savior, teach us so to rise.

Go to Dark Gethsemane

 text by James Montgomery:

Go to dark Gethsemane,
you who feel the tempter's power.
Your redeemer's conflict see;
watch with Him one bitter hour.
Turn not from his griefs away-
learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

See him at the judgment hall;
view the Lord of life arraigned.
Oh, the wormwood and the gall!
oh! the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suffering, shame, nor loss-
learn of Christ to bear the Cross.

Calvary's mournful mountain climb,
there adoring at His feet.
Mark that miracle of time,
Lo, the sacrifice complete.
'It is finished!' hear Him cry-
learn of Jesus Christ to die.

George soars

 Reading this is like a breath of fresh air after trudging through the Mordor of this pontificate:

Throughout the Lenten itinerary of conversion we have lived for six weeks, the Church has asked us to reflect on God’s thirst for us. Thus, the paradigmatic Lenten Gospel reading of Jesus and the woman at the well on the Third Sunday of Lent points to prayer as a “gift of God” (John 4:10): Prayer is our divinely empowered response to God’s burning desire for our holiness. Other paradigmatic Lenten Sunday Gospels strike a similar note: The cure of the man born blind (who is empowered to see Jesus as the Light of the World [John 9, 5, 38]) and the raising of Lazarus from the dead (which follows Martha’s act of faith in John 11:27). God creates or “speaks” the world into being through his “Word” (John 1:3) and redeems the world through the Word incarnate (John 1:14) to share the divine holiness. God yearns, God “thirsts,” for the holiness of the human creatures he has created, so that he might be in covenant relationship with them. 

The Redemption wrought in Christ is not, therefore, some sort of addendum to creation. The paschal mystery of Christ’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension is the axial point of the entire drama of creation: the decisive, definitive turning point that reveals why there is “creation” at all. Thus, the answer that Christian faith, which is Easter faith, gives to a question philosophy has pondered for millennia—Why is there something rather than nothing?—is, in a word, holiness. The Thrice-Holy God created so that the holiness shared among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit might be shared ad extra: in a world brought into being to experience the eternal giving-and-receiving of love that is God’s inner-trinitarian life. 

Sheen's Insights

via Happy Catholic

Fulton Sheen notes the connection between Cana and the Cross:

He worked in the full gaze of men what He had refused to do before Satan. Satan asked Him to turn stones into bread in order that He might become an economic Messiah; His mother asked Him to change water into wine that He might become a Savior.