The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Last Night As I Lay Sleeping

LAST NIGHT AS I LAY SLEEPING

by Antonio Machado

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt--marvelous error!--
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me?
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt--marvelous error!--
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt--marvelous error!--
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept
I dreamt--marvelous error!--
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

(Translated by Robert Bly)

As you are beginning to see,
Antonio Machado is one of my favorite poets.
This particular poem to me is exquisite.

I see in it the awakening of a great soul

as he realizes, as if in a dream,

the sublime Truth that God is not

a separate Being. GOD IS, and He lives

in the depths of our being.

This seems to me a sister poem to that

of another great Spanish poet, St. John of the Cross,

when he wrote of another night of awakening, saying:

On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.

(Instead of the "marvelous error" of Machado,

John says, "oh, happy chance!")

The awakening of the soul is gradual,

coming with a progressive awareness,

as with a flower slowly opening out to full bloom.

The first awareness comes as living water,

water which quenches our thirst

and without which no life can be sustained.

It comes bringing new life.

Then, it comes as a beehive,

where all our failing are gathered

from far and near, brought back to the hive

and transformed by grace

into the sweet honey of merciful love.

This is followed by the fiery sun,

bringing light and warmth,

illuminating all our darkness, while at the same time

blinding our eyes with the tears that come

when the inmost depth of our being

has been touched.

The final revelation is expressed

with the fewest words. There is no language

that can adequately describe what it is.

It simply IS, and can only be adored, praised

and loved in silence.

The soul is now fully awake.

La Saeta Serrat Antonio Machado

La Saeta Serrat Antonio Machado

The Spanish are a passionate people--

just look at their poets, their dancers

their music, and above all at their saints.

And no people love the Passion of Jesus

like the Spaniards. Their songs and poems

to the Crucified are like love songs,

so full of longing and the agony of never

being able to love God enough.

Listen to this video, La Saeta Serrat,

and meditate on the words of the poem

by Antonio Machado set to music

and with visuals.

LA SAETA

Dijo una voz popular:
Quin me presta una escalera
para subir al madero
para quitarle los clavos
a Jess el Nazareno?

Oh, la saeta, el cantar
al Cristo de los gitanos
siempre con sangre en las manos,
siempre por desenclavar.

Cantar del pueblo andaluz
que todas las primaveras
anda pidiendo escaleras
para subir a la cruz.

Cantar de la tierra ma
que echa flores
al Jess de la agona
y es la fe de mis mayores.

Oh, no eres t mi cantar
no puedo cantar, ni quiero
a este Jess del madero
sino al que anduvo en la mar!

La Saeta - Antonio Machado Said a voice from town Who can lend me a ladder to climb the cross to take the nails off Jesus of Nazareth? Oh, the arrow, the song to the King of the Gypsy's, forever with bloody hands, ever ready to be taken down the cross! Song of the Andalusian people, that every Spring season go asking for ladders to climb up to the crucified Jesus! A song of my land (town) that throws flowers to the suffering Jesus, and is my elders' faith! Oh no, this is not my song! I cannot sing it, I do not want to sing to the Jesus in the cross but rather to He who walked on water! [Free Translation from blog http://www.mychurch.org/blog/256388/La-Saeta---The-Arrow-by-Antonio-Machado]

Our Mother of Sorrows

The Suffering God

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Friends

Time to sit back and relax for a bit, while

we remember the great blessing we have

in our friends. Enjoy this little video

meditation, and then lift your heart

and mind to the Friend Who dwells

in your heart of hearts.

St. Teresa of Avila wrote and spoke much

on this subject, which she knew so well

from knowing her own heart. She even

spoke of prayer as "a friendly conversation

with One we know loves us." The greatest

friendship of all is the one with Our Lord,

and Teresa saw all other friendships in

the light of that great love.

In The Way of Perfection, Chapter VIII

she writes of the friendships

she wants for her nuns:

"People will tell you

that you do not need such friends,

that God is enough.

But to be with God's friends

is a good way to keep close to Him

and you will always draw great benefit

from being with them.

I know this from experience for,

after God HImself,

it is due to such persons that I am not in hell.

I always wanted to have their prayers

and begged them to pray for me."

May we all be blessed with such friends,

and may we be such friends for

one another.

WHEN WE FIND LOVE

WHEN WE FIND LOVE,

we partake of heavenly bread

and are made strong without labor and toil.

The heavenly bread is Christ,

who came down from heaven

and gave life to the world.

This is the nourishment of angels.

The person who has found love eats and drinks Christ every day and every hour and is thereby made immortal. …When we hear Jesus say, “Ye shall eat and drink at the table of my kingdom,” what do we suppose we shall eat, if not love? Love, rather than food and drink, is sufficient to nourish a person. This is the wine “which maketh glad the heart.” Blessed is the one who partakes of this wine! Licentious people have drunk this wine and become chaste; sinners have drunk it and have forgotten the pathways of stumbling; drunkards have drunk this wine and become fasters; the rich have drunk it and desired poverty, the poor have drunk it and been enriched with hope; the sick have drunk it and become strong; the unlearned have taken it and become wise.

Repentance is given us as grace after grace, for repentance is a second regeneration by God. That of which we have received an earnest by baptism, we receive as a gift by means of repentance. Repentance is the door of mercy, opened to those who seek it. By this door we enter into the mercy of God, and apart from this entrance we shall not find mercy.

Blessed is God who uses corporeal objects continually to draw us close in a symbolic way to a knowledge of God’s invisible nature. O name of Jesus, key to all gifts, open up for me the great door to your treasure-house, that I may enter and praise you with the praise that comes from the heart.

O my Hope, pour into my heart the inebriation that consists in the hope of you. O Jesus Christ, the resurrection and light of all worlds, place upon my soul’s head the crown of knowledge of you; open before me all of a sudden the door of mercies, cause the rays of your grace to shine out in my heart.

O Christ, who are covered with light as though with a garment, who for my sake stood naked in front of Pilate, clothe me with that might which you caused to overshadow the saints, whereby they conquered this world of struggle. May your Divinity, Lord, take pleasure in me, and lead me above the world to be with you.

I give praise to your holy Nature, Lord, for you have made my nature a sanctuary for your hiddenness and a tabernacle for your holy mysteries, a place where you can dwell, and a holy temple for your Divinity.

Adapted from Bp. Hilarion Alfeyev’s The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian(Cistercian Studies 175), Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2000.

Paradise is the love of God

Paradise is the love of God, wherein is the enjoyment of all blessedness.

The person who lives in love reaps the fruit of life from God, and while yet in this world, even now breathes the air of the resurrection.

In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.

Question: When is a person sure of having arrived at purity?

Answer: When that person considers all human beings are good, and no created thing appears impure or defiled. Then a person is truly pure in heart.

Love is sweeter than life.

Sweeter still, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb is the awareness of God whence love is born.

Love is not loath to accept the hardest of deaths for those it loves.

Love is the child of knowledge.

Lord, fill my heart with eternal life.

As for me I say that those who are tormented in hell are tormented by the invasion of love. What is there more bitter and violent than the pains of love? Those who feel they have sinned against love bear in themselves a damnation much heavier than the most dreaded punishments. The suffering with which sinning against love afflicts the heart is more keenly felt than any other torment. It is absurd to assume that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is offered impartially. But by its very power it acts in two ways. It torments sinners, as happens here on earth when we are tormented by the presence of a friend to whom we have been unfaithful. And it gives joy to those who have been faithful.

That is what the torment of hell is in my opinion: remorse. But love inebriates the souls of the sons and daughters of heaven by its delectability.

If zeal had been appropriate for putting humanity right, why did God the Word clothe himself in the body, using gentleness and humility in order to bring the world back to his Father?

Sin is the fruit of free will. There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist.

God’s recompense to sinners is that, instead of a just recompense, God rewards them with resurrection.