Dryness
”Our Faith tells us that God is always Present to us and by grace He is in our souls. Dryness then forces us to live by what Faith teaches rather than what our feelings make us desire. Unless God bestows upon us the searing power of dryness we shall forever be swayed by emotional feelings designed to prod us on but never capable of changing us.” ~Mother Angelica
(via thefullnessofthefaith)
Source: journeytotruth
When we admit our faith is weak, when we admit our faith is shaky, when we admit that our faith isn’t what it should be, actually we’re exercising it, and we’re making it more and more firm. Something tells me that’s why we’re (at World Youth Day). Our faith is weak, our faith is shaky. We want to be with a million other young people from around the world who love their faith and are trying to make it strong.
(via bishopfeed)
Source: catholicnews.com
Thus Christian faith is without strength unless marinated in doubt, nudged by uncertainties, and tested for endurance by the difficult odds of the wager. At soul depth, we Christians are Lenten people, ash-marked pilgrims trudging a road with death’s cross as the only certain marker, driven by a yearning for more beyond, above, below, nevertheless, yet.
Catholic Culture : On the Culture : Providence and Realism
If we do not trust God, two very damaging results follow. First, we are inevitably left to our own devices. If we trust other people, we will soon realize that the results of such trust are spotty at best, meaning that such trust will become provisional, a trust that may or may not be rewarded. Thus we learn that, in the last analysis, we are on our own, just as if we trusted nobody but ourselves—and if we’re reflective, we aren’t so sure about ourselves.
I now listen all day long to what is within me, and am able to draw strength from the most deeply hidden sources in myself. I keep following my own inner voice even in the madhouse… Let me perform a thousand daily tasks with love, but let every one spring from a greater central core of devotion and love.
So, what is at stake? Everything. These things are easy to get wrong, and we doubtless fail at many of them most of the time. What is to be done? First we pray and seek to live our lives as though we believed in God. And not only that we believe in God, but that the goal of our life is our mystical union with Him and one another. We can engage in any Godly activity, but it will be seen as a Godly activity, if and only if, its goal is true union with God and one another. This will be marked by love, freedom, indeed the fruit of the Spirit. It may not be the most efficient of organizations (efficiency is not a criteria of Godly judgment), but if it is moving forward in this work of healing in whatever it is doing, then it is doing the work of God and He will be glorified.
In every activity of the Church, whether it is liturgical, or educational, or building buildings, what have you, each activity should serve for the healing of the soul and the nurture of the true self. If not, then the Church has simply become one more secular activity that is destroying true life rather than fostering it.
The healing of the self includes the healing of the whole self. Though purification, illumination and deification (or the various ways of describing the ascetical and spiritual life of the Orthodox Christian) our emotions are restored to their proper function. We are able to love, to be thankful, to have anger even hate (in their proper sense – meaning however whatever is actually in the image of God). We do what is right (not as measured by some abstract set of principles or objective set of rules) but as is measured by the will of God: “whoever does the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
Makoto Fujimura | A Letter to Young Artists
Have you ever felt awkward, and felt the “lumps”? If you are an artist, perhaps you began your journey realizing that you are different from others. We have gotten used to having these “lumps” and accepted the fact that to the world the “lumps” looks strange and unnatural. Your teachers and your friends may not fully understand your intuition to try to fly with your winged “lumps.” What started out, at first, as trying to be yourself, may have become an effort to shield and protect your true identity from the world. Perhaps rebellion became the only path you could journey on. Your “lumps” became a defense mechanism, or even a weapon.
What if Lewis is right, and you are destined to “fly”? What if our awkwardness, and our uniqueness points to the potential of the person we are meant to become? In order to learn to fly, you need to be patient, and ready to experience many failures; we need an environment where we can fail often, but you also need opportunities to peer into the wonders and mysteries of the vista of the world to come. Since many, including those in the institutions of the schools or churches, will not understand, you may have to create “fellowship” yourself. Do not be surprised by their rejections.
“Religious freedom expresses what is unique about the human person, for it allows us to direct our personal and social life to God, in whose light the identity, meaning and purpose of the person are fully understood. To deny or arbitrarily restrict this freedom is to foster a reductive vision of the human person; to eclipse the public role of religion is to create a society which is unjust, inasmuch as it fails to take account of the true nature of the human person; it is to stifle the growth of the authentic and lasting peace of the whole human family.” -Pope Benedict XVI, World Day of Peace, 1 Jan 2011
Source: becket
