Love Like Laundry

"You are the dryer-sheet of my heart."
"And you're the lint-trap of my love."
(Sheldon and Amy on The Big Bang Theory)

Merton on Christian Love

The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved.  The faith that one is loved by God.  That faith that one is loved by God although unworthy -- or, rather, irrespective of one's worth!  In the true Christian vision of God's love, the idea of worthiness loses its significance.  Revelation of the mercy of God makes the whole problem of worthiness something almost laughable: the discovery that worthiness is of no special consequence (since no-one could ever, by himself, be strictly worthy to be loved with such a love) is a true liberation of the spirit.  And until this discovery is made, until this liberation has been brought about by the divine mercy, man is imprisoned in hate.  

~ Thomas Merton, from New Seeds of Contemplation

"I want to live!"

“The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion.” ~ Blessed Mother Teresa

I have some friends who seem to value and enjoy loving people, anyone, “everyone”, regardless of differences.  And yet, they are “pro-choice” and support the pro-abortion agenda.  I can’t help but think that if these friends could meet the babies in their mothers’ wombs who are about to be aborted (for these are also part of that supposed “everyone”), and these babies could share their hearts with them, my friends might realize the love they have to share MUST include loving and protecting these little ones.

Even though these babies in the womb can’t speak with audible words, they can even-so share their hearts.  Their tiny little hearts are beating, pumping blood through their developing bodies, showing in a very tangible way their 100 % desire to live! 

When a baby is aborted, it is sometimes burned (with chemicals) to death.  Sometimes the baby is pulled apart in the womb, limb by limb; the abortionist pulls off the baby’s legs, the baby’s hands, the baby’s head…  Abortion is not the removal of mindless, heartless tissue; abortion is the mutilation and killing of a baby, a human-being. 

93% of all abortions occur for social reasons .  http://abortionno.org/index.php/abortion_facts/

Is this loving everyone?  http://www.abortionno.org/  Be forewarned: the video on the homepage of this site shows what abortion really is with live footage of an abortion.  Don’t watch it if you aren’t prepared to face the truth.  There are also beautiful videos of a developing baby in the womb showing the development of various organs.  These babies have minds, hearts, feelings; most of all they wish to live.

"The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child - I will not forget you - I have carved you in the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of His hand, so close to Him that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God. And that is what strikes me most, the beginning of that sentence, that even if a mother could forget something impossible - but even if she could forget - I will not forget you. And today the greatest means - the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. And we who are standing here - our parents wanted us. We would not be here if our parents would do that to us. Our children, we want them, we love them, but what of the millions. Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between. And this I appeal in India, I appeal everywhere: Let us bring the child back, and this year being the child's year: What have we done for the child?"  ~ Blessed Mother Teresa (from her Nobel Peace Prize lecture)

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-lecture.html

Pope BXVI on Priorities

"There is no greater priority than this: to enable the people of our time once more to encounter God, the God who speaks to us and shares his love so that we might have life in abundance."

~ Pope Benedict XVI (Verbum Domini)

Amiel on Life's Purpose

Life is short and we have 
not too much time for gladdening 
the hearts of those 
who are traveling the dark way with us.  

O be swift to love!  

Make haste to be kind.


~ Henri-Frederic Amiel (1821-1881)

Naked and In Harmony

The Garden of Eden was a place

"where all was naked and in harmony"

and the people

"were either loved very well at their center or who suffered very much around the edges, probably both."

~Rohr, Everything Belongs 


I feel that describes me!  Yet my life has not been the Garden of Eden!!

"In God's reign 'everything belongs,' even the broken and poor parts."

Because everything can be redeemed by God's Love.  (I don't know if Rohr would agree with my reason, but that's what I think.)

The Balm That Heals The Ingratitude Of The World

Make the resolution today to be nothing for creatures, nothing for yourself, and all for God.  The great secret of holiness, I repeat to you, is to love, and saints are nothing but chalices of sorrowful love, "fools of faith, beings of light."  Another day I will speak to you about the martyrdom of love, that which most crucifies, and obtains the most graces.  For now you have enough to entertain yourself at the feet of Jesus.  I only tell you that humble souls are the ones who know how to love truly, and are the only ones to receive and communicate the rays of sovereign goodness.

Love, then, but with a love born of humility; we are not holy because we are not humble.  Do you love me more than these?  Tell him: "This is what I desire, Jesus of my heart, this is what I long for with all the enthusiasm of my humble heart.  To love you more than all the angels and saints."  To love you, to love you!  All the rest is detail, Jesus, images that pass, they are smoke that vanishes, only you, Jesus, Jesus and Mary.  I want to enter into your heart, more deeply than the lance, more profoundly than your heartbeats, and live from its warmth and its light, its charity and zeal, its meekness and humility.  That wound bleeds, that wound is waiting for me and hopes that I may be the balm that heals the ingratitude of the world and of those who are his own.  You, the Jesus who lives and breathes not far away, but right near to me, the one whom I devour with the inmost ardent desire every morning, shall be, from now on, the confidant of my secrets, of my confidences.

You love me, and this electrifies me.  You want to be my Father, my guide, my companion, by brother, my friend, my spouse, my everything!  O sweet Jesus, look at me!  One glance from you, and my heart will be opened to holy growth.  Give me your heartbeats, give me your voice, your heart, your tenderness, you compassion!

Possess me, absorb me, transform me, divinize me, simplifying me so that we may be two in one, you in me, I in you!

~Venerable Concepcion Cabrera de Armida (Conchita)

Contemplative Prayer

Paradoxical as it may seem, it would not even occur to a person -- no, nor to an angel or saint -- to desire contemplative love were it not already alive within him.  I believe, too, that often our Lord deliberately chooses to work in those who have been habitual sinners rather than in those who, by comparison, have never grieved him at all.  Yes, he seems to do this very often.  For I think he wants us to realize that he is all-merciful and almighty, and that he is perfectly free to work as he pleases, where he pleases, and when he pleases.

Yet he does not give his grace nor work this work in a person who has no aptitude for it.  But a person lacking the capacity to receive his grace could never gain it through his own efforts either.  No one at all, neither sinner nor innocent, can do so.  For this grace is a gift, and it is not given for innocence nor withheld for sin...

Contemplative prayer is God's gift, wholly gratuitous.  No one can earn it.  It is in the nature of this gift that one who receives it receives also the aptitude for it.  No one can have the aptitude without the gift itself.  The aptitude for this work is one with the work; they are identical.  He who experiences God working in the depths of his spirit has the aptitude for contemplation and no one else.  For without God's grace a person would be so completely insensitive to the reality of contemplative prayer that he would be unable to desire or long for it.  You possess it to the extent that you will and desire to possess it, no more and no less.  But you will never desire to possess it until that which is ineffable and unknowable moves you to desire the ineffable and unknowable.  Do not be curious to know more, I beg you.  Only become increasingly faithful to this work until it becomes your whole life.

To put it more simply, let that mysterious grace move in your spirit as it will and follow wherever it leads you.  Let it be the active doer and you the passive receiver...  Your part is to be as wood to a carpenter or a home to a dweller.  Remain blind during this time, cutting away all desire to know, for knowledge is a hindrance here.  Be content to feel this mysterious grace sweetly awaken in the depths of your spirit.  Forget everything but God and fix on him your naked desire, your longing stripped of all self-interest.

from The Cloud Of Unknowing
which was written in Middle English by an unknown mystic of the 14th century.

"Love One Another"

"The less we have, the more we give.  Seems absurd, but it's the logic of love."...
True love causes pain.  Jesus, in order to give us the proof of His love, died on the cross.  A mother, in order to give birth to her baby, has to suffer.  If you really love one another, you will not be able to avoid making sacrifices.  The poor do not need our condescending attitude or our pity.  They only need our love and our tenderness.

To me, Jesus is the Life I want to live, the Light I want to reflect, the Way to the Father, the Love I want to express, the joy I want to share, the Peace I want to sow around me.  Jesus is everything to me.

If faith is scarce, it is because there is too much selfishness in the world, too much egoism.  Faith, in order to be authentic, has to be generous and giving.  Love and faith go hand in hand...

God has created us so we do small things with great love.  I believe in that great love, that comes, or should come from our heart, should start at home: with my family, my neighbors across the street, those right next door.  And this love should then reach everyone.

~Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

from the May 2010 -- Vo. 12, No. 3 issue of Magnificat

Anonymous Re Friend's Love

"A friend is someone who knows all about you, but loves you anyway!"

1st Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully know.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

~ New International Version