Perseverance

You know, one of my favorite saints is St. Monica. I have the habit of entrusting those people who I think need the most prayer to her. It's not that they're hopeless cases - otherwise, I'd choose St. Jude - but they try my patience. I really want the Lord to hear my prayer for them now, and I want their lives to get better, or their faith to grow, now.

But this isn't good. I mean, God hears my prayers. And He will answer them, just as a father gives his child fish when asked, and not a snake (cf. Lk 11:11-13). It may not be as I want, but it will be on His time.

But I'm so impatient. So I ask St. Monica to pray for these intentions, and for me. St. Monica was the mother of the great theologian, bishop, saint, and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine. This is amazing enough, but even better (cf. St. Augustine's Confessions) is how St. Augustine was converted. He was a wayward child, to put it lightly, and his mother mourned and prayed for him for years before he converted. It is said that she prayed this long, and then got discouraged. An angel appeared to her, telling her to be patient and keep praying. So after praying again for years, her son was indeed converted to the True Faith, and she was able, prior to her death, to spend an entire night talking with her son about heavenly things. This is what is depicted in the picture for this blog. I imagine that they are both longing for heaven with great intensity, just as we ought to.

A little boy, who was canonized after his death at age 15, was a follower of St. John Bosco. He came to Don Bosco and said, 'Don Bosco, help me to become a saint now - I don't know how long I have to live.' There was nothing wrong with the little boy of 13 that would indicate an immanent death, and yet his eagerness for holiness and perseverance ensured that he was in heaven upon his death two years later.

So there is something proper to being eager, to longing with such great intensity. But this is different from impatience. A tree is known by its fruit (Lk 6:44); think about it. Impatience brings out in me a whiny little child who wants what she wants even though she cannot seem to get it; eagerness and longing for God bring peace and the will to persevere.

So my impatience in prayer is actually something bad; rather, I should, with St. Monica, cry and pray so intensely and eagerly that my dress is worn through at the knees, as hers all were. Then perhaps the Lord would hear my prayer and reassure me with an angel. There's only one way to find out...perseverance.

Peace in Annoyance

You know, I heard something in a homily the other day (I'm blessed to be at a school where I hear about saints, canon law, theology, sacraments, and God's love and forgiveness on different occasions):

"lots of people try, but saints persevere."

But sometimes I don't know where they get their strength. Take tonight: my husband, for the millionth time in the two months we've been married, annoys me with the same mistake he's made before. He didn't mean to do it ("I do that which I do not want to do..."), but that doesn't really make it better for me. How do I persevere in virtue here? I was reading St. Paul, founder of the Passionists, on this his feast day (pray for us!), and in his diary he spoke about depressions and numerous sufferings, and yet none of these robbed him of his peace. After all, a saint who's sad is a sad saint (thank you Butler, author of the English Lives of the Saints). But how do I keep this peace? Here's an excerpt:

"It seems to me it is similar to a baby at the breast of its mother. With its mouth it sucks the milk even though hands and feet are gyrating about. Head can twist, bow, and move, but always it takes its milk because it never takes its mouth from the breast of its mother. It would certainly do better if it remained quiet instead of behaving as I said. Nevertheless, milk continues to flow down its throat because it never takes its mouth from the mother’s breast. So it is with the soul. Our will is the mouth and never ceases to imbibe the milk of holy love, even though the powers of intellect and memory go astray. It is true that the will is more invigorated when all powers remain together and quiet. Since the Lord does not wish me to understand it otherwise, I cannot better explain myself." St. Paul of the Cross, Diary of Friday, Nov. 29th.

He was only 26. St. Therese, one of my favorite saints, was only 24 when she died. If these can have profound experiences of the True God at such young ages, surely I am capable of just praying better and more often in humility. Maybe if I prayed 'all the time,' then I could have His peace in my heart constantly, as St. Paul did. I remember (too lazy to look this up at present - that's irony for you, folks) in Introduction to the Devout Life, that St. Francis de Sales would encourage the reader, the lover of God (Philothea), to try to hold the attitude gained in morning prayer in himself with the delicacy one would use with a cup filled to the brim. If I prayed more often, increasing this habitus until I might pray continuously, then perhaps the little annoyances would truly seem little and would not tip over the cup of peace in my heart.

It is in the everyday choices that we become saints.

There is so much more to talk about here, but I must go: in closing, here's a quote from St. Therese that somehow comforts me, to know that having little annoyed moments is normal and can be occasions of holy acts:

"If ... the devil tries to show me the faults of a sister, I hasten to think of all her virtues and of how good her intentions are. I tell myself that though I have seen her commit a sin, she may very well have won many spiritual victories of which I know nothing because of her humility. What seems a fault to me may very well be an act of virtue because of the intention behind it." - St. Therese

Well, I suppose that "all that remains for us then is to fight. When we have not the strength, it is then that Jesus fights for us." (St. Therese).

Little Red Ball, Little Red Ball...

... Just try to be a little red ball!

I found this quote on a fellow blogger's site (doxology):

"We are at Jesus' disposal. If he wants you to be sick in bed, if he wants you to proclaim His work in the street, if he wants you to clean the toilets all day, that's all right, everything is all right. We must say, 'I belong to you. You can do whatever you like.' And this is our strength, and this is the joy of the Lord." – Bl. Teresa of Calcutta

It reminds me that Blessed Theresa was under the patronage of (and was the namesake of) one of my favorite saints, Therese of the Child Jesus (the Little Flower). She has a great image to express the above:

“He has not allowed His creatures to do what they will but only what He wills. … I had offered myself to the Child Jesus to be His little plaything. I told Him not to treat me like one of those precious toys which children only look at and dare not touch, but to treat me like a little ball of no value, that could be thrown on the ground, kicked about, pierced, left in a corner, or pressed to His Heart just as it might please Him. In a word I wished to amuse the Holy child and to let Him play with me as He fancied. Here indeed He was answering my prayer. In Rome Jesus pierced His little plaything. He wanted to see what was inside… and when satisfied, He let it drop and went to sleep. … Dear Mother, you can imagine the sadness of the little ball lying neglected on the ground! And yet it continued to hope against hope.” – St. Therese

This is not to say with Narnia's Tashbaans that 'Aslan is not a tame lion' and therefore unpredictable (akin to the Islamic conception of God as so completely beyond us that even analogy fails; God is not good as we think of good, and could actually command something evil in our eyes because He is God). No - and unfortunately, we don't even have to look further than your average university's philosophy department to find the similar disappearance of analogy.

Instead, these blessed women realize that the Lord is good, good as we know it and, by analogy, greater than any good we know. Not beyond good as outside of it (so that it could also be evil as we see it), but to our good and beyond (echoes of Toy Story in my head...). God is good, good, good, ad infinitem. And since He is so good, and all-powerful, and takes care of even the lilies in the valley and birds of the air (echoes of Scriptures and a recent news story in my head...), how much more will He care for us? We ought to trust Him like these saintly women.
Even when we're 'neglected' or thrown around.

Just be a little red ball.... (echoes)

NB: St. Therese's autobio can be found here.

Birth of a Blog

This blog will be a long time in building, since I'm new to this. And I'm in grad school.