HERE I AM TO WORSHIP

HERE I AM TO WORSHIP
                       Tim Hughes

Light of the world
You stepped down into darkness
Opened my eyes, Let me see
Beauty that made this heart adore you
Hope of a life spent with you

Here I am to worship
Here I am to bow down
Here I am to say that you're my God


You're altogether lovely
Altogether worthy
Altogether wonderful to meKing of all days
So highly exalted
Glorious in heaven above
Humbly you came to the earth you created
All for love's sake became poor

Here I am to worship
Here I am to bow down
Here I am to say that you're my God
You're altogether lovely
Altogether worthy
Altogether wonderful to me
(repeat)

I'll never know how much it cost
To see my sin upon that cross
(repeat 3x)

Here I am to worship
Here I am to bow down
Here I am to say that you're my God
You're altogether lovely
Altogether worthy
Altogether wonderful to me
(repeat)

For here we have no lasting home, we are looking for the city that is to come.  Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God.  Heb. 13:14-15     (For) no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Cor. 2:9    (Therefore) by the power of God’s glory may you be endowed with the strength needed to stand fast, even to endure joyfully whatever may come giving thanks to the Father, who made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light.  God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the beloved Son, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Col. 1:11-14 

We began Midday prayer with this song of praise, ‘Here I am To Worship.’  It is a song filled with confidence in the One who came down from heaven to freely give his life to us.   Jesus’ freedom came from the sure knowledge that he was in the hands of his loving Father.

Early on in our retreat, I woke up with a song gentle wafting through my head by the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley.  It was the love song, “Take my hand, take my whole life too, for I can’t help falling in love with you.”  Now whether it was the King of Love, the King of all days, singing it to me or I singing to him, it all depended on the moment.  Jesus has offered his hand, his whole life to me as a continual act of love - always new and always flowing – to be with me on this journey from darkness to light.   When I take his hand, offering my life to him; I long always to be falling more and more in love with him as he leads me on my life’s journey.

Jesus had the freedom to accept God’s plan of love for our redemption.  Do we have the freedom to accept whatever God places before us, whether good or bad, with a peaceful heart?  It is by no means easy when we do not know our future.  But our constitutions call us to “be a clear and radiant witness of the love God has for us in Christ.” Const. 5   By faith in the living Christ and by the prayer of praise and intercession which through Him rises up to the Father, (we) live out at a deep level the Paschal Mystery of Christ, dead and risen.”  Const. 4  It is a conundrum to me when I hear about the martyrs who joyfully went to their death witnessing to Christ.  I don’t think I’d have the courage. We are called, though, to be martyrs like Therese, or Teresa, or Celeste was:  ‘Offering ourselves to the Father as a living eucharist for the world.’ Const. 35    Alone, I do not have the strength but together and with the Lord leading us “we can radiate paschal joy among ourselves and around us giving witness to the Risen Christ.”  Const. 21

 

 

 

 

 

REMEMBER THE CALL

Here we are in the early days of autumn. Soon the leaves will begin to change color and leaves will float gently to the ground and decompose back into the earth to replenish the soil for new life to take root. 

In remembering the Incarnation today and remembering our call to follow the Redeemer we harken back to what Ven. Maria Celeste called the ‘gospel seeds’ that were planted in our hearts: seeds that took root and grew into tender green shoots that became tall and strong over the years in the light of Christ.  And now, basking in the Son’s rays, we trust in the journey thus far and gather our collective wisdom and insight and mulch them into ground of our beings and water them with hope in preparation for whatever the future holds for us.

We live our Redemptoristine spirituality full of hope because ‘Hope is the power of Jesus Risen in us.’  (C&S 135)  What that future will look like we don’t know.  But new life is hiding!  Perhaps what we do with our lives will plant new gospel seeds somewhere else that will take root and grow. In order to generate new life new planting may be called for: new planting in the salvation history of the people of God, new planting in the culture and the times in which we live, new planting of the contemplative spirit within us calling us to ‘be a visible witness and a living memorial of the Paschal Mystery of Redemption in which the Father has accomplished His plan of love through Christ and in the spirit.’ (C&S1)

Jesus promised Celeste, therefore us, that when we ‘leave everything in his hands all things will fall into place for the best purpose!  (So) with faith, believe in him; with hope, keep your every good secure; and love only him, as the Lord of your heart and as the Life in which you live!’ (Florilegium 101)

Throughout the seasons, throughout our life, we have offered to the Holy Redeemer our life of praise and intercession by faith in the living Christ in response to the love God has bestowed on us through the Son.  May the ‘Consoling Spirit who gathers us together help us live in unity’ (C&S 2) and continue to grow into the fullness of life in our changing times. 

MIRRORS OF LOVE

It all began when Ven. Maria Celeste Crostarosa received a revelation while she was still a novice to, “Stamp on your spirit the features of his life and the resemblance of him that comes from imitation.   Be on earth living and inspired portraits of my beloved Son.  Carry him about as the life of your heart and as the goal of your existence and as the Master of your spirit.”   Intent of the Father   “This instruction was for her soul like a polished mirror into which, she remained gazing continually at the dazzling light of the sun (Son) and found herself at once drawn into the divine splendor of her Well-Beloved.” Autobiography    Celeste, and the Order which she was to found, was called from the beginning to be for the world a Mirror of God’s Love.

Likewise, we are called to fix our gaze on the Son and, as if gazing in a mirror, see not only the splendor of His Being but in our own being a living reflection of God’s eternal love.   “It is in this that the Redeemer is able today to accomplish His work of salvation in us and through us.”  Const. 5    For, “The more we strive to live the love of Christ, the more the thoughts and feelings of Christ will fill our spirit and our heart, the more we will become His faithful images.”  Const.6  

Like a double exposure of a photograph, one superimposed on the other, we endeavor to be Christ to one another:  “To be a living copy and faithful portrait of Jesus so that he might find himself in you, and you recognize yourself in him, your God through faith.”  Florilegium 6. Spiritual Exercises for December, med. 3 paraphrased

Jesus continued to instruct Celeste with these words, “In my wisdom, goodness, and infinity I call you, dear soul, because I want you to be clothed with all the virtues that make me beautiful, thus you will be the image of me and I shall live a life of love in the world by dwelling in your heart.”   Florilegium 4. Colloquies, III, 18 (28)

Ven. Celeste had a creative spirit.  Just reading her works gives us insight into the richness of her inner life by the way she uses imagery in her writings.  She was also pliable in the hand of God by opening her heart and allowing God to shape and mold her, transform her into the image of the Son.

This brought to my mind a wise saying by an anonymous author:  “It is not you that shapes God.  It is God that shapes you.  If then you are the work of God, await the hand of the Artist who does all things in due season.  Offer God your heart, soft and tractable, and keep the form in which the Artist has fashioned you.  Let your clay be moist lest you grow hard and lose the imprint of God’s fingers.”

Today, you are gathered to reflect on your commitment to become Christ’s perfect image.   A tall order.  Nevertheless, that is why you make your commitment so you can remain moist so that the Hand of the Artist can continually form your heart in every season into the image of Christ.    And this transformation into the image of Christ is a life-long process.  How is this done?

Jesus said to Celeste then, and says to us now, “Enter into my divine heart and live there every day of your life so as to be able to achieve a true imitation of me in love and in activity through a new life witnessed by the whole world, because you are, from among many others, my only and dearly beloved.”  Florilegium 5. Colloquies, III, 23 (35)

How can we achieve this entering into Jesus’ divine heart?  By entering into our own hearts in quiet prayer and taking time each day to commune with the Beloved.   Only through prayer do we come to know in ourselves the love God has for us in Christ.  Occasionally, when I am beginning a retreat or feeling down, I pick up my Chotki, Eastern orthodox prayer knots, or a rosary, and inhale the Breath of Life hearing the Word of God say to me, “You are my beloved.”  And on the exhale I let it deepen in my heart.  There are fifty knots on this circle of prayer.  If you wanted to go around again, you could reverse the prayer and inhale the name of Jesus and on the exhale say to him, “You are my Beloved.”

From this kind of prayer flows openness of heart and the strength “to live the love of Christ, (and) be true witnesses of the love of Him who is our beginning and our End, our Way and our Life.”    Const.5

The Beloved told Celeste, “My Spirit which rests in the just soul, as on its own throne, is never quiet.  Since your soul is an image of my substance, what then are you in your spirit, in your being, if not a living image, a living reprint of me, yet dependent on my Being?”       86. Colloquies VI, 47 (63)   Jesus’ breath is our breath.  God is as close to us as the air flowing in and out of our lungs.  We are dependent on God and God is never quiet in reaching out to all humankind through us.  We are the hands, the feet, the words, the prayer of Jesus.

On September 14^th we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.    The Entrance Antiphon we pray at Mass that day sums up the whole reason for the feast: “We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, our life and resurrection, through which we are saved.”  

This day is an important feast for Redemptoristines because the fourteenth is also the anniversary of the Ven. Maria Celeste Crostarosa’s death in 1755.  All her life Celeste made of “her will an echo of Christ’s will,”  Florilugium 64. Colloquies II, 7 (11)  and lived united with him on the cross due to the many trails she endured throughout her life.  She willingly did this because she experienced “also in glory   at the same time by reason of her participation,   the joy and union of the Divine Work.” Florilegium 129. Degrees of Prayer XI, 90 (36)     Therefore, it was apropos that she should die on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and be united with her Beloved in heaven as she was on earth.

Jesus invited his disciples, Celeste, and us, with these words,      "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross each day and follow me." (Luke 9:23)  Celeste’s response was, “Oh with what love I embraced the cross, loved it, desired it and took pleasure in it -- all for your love.”  She continues, “Likewise those who love bind themselves to the cross…savor the true and solid sweetness of God and the true peace found therein.”  Florilegium 118. Rules. Love of the Cross, 9r-9v (188-189)

Yesterday, September 8^th, we celebrated the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Ven. Celeste extolled “the divine resemblance of Jesus in Mary,” in these words, “Stamped by sacred and divine love on her heart  Jesus wished to remain over her heart like a seal imprinted on her will… in a way that the will of Mary became so faithful a resemblance of the divine that a genuine portrait of the Divinity seemed to be carved on the heart of Mary....”   12. Exercise of love for every day, 31 December.

Celeste bore witness to this in these words, “Yes, my Lady, You are a true image of the Original, a Portrait of Jesus. O my Mother, you are a pure crystal which sparkles most clearly.”   Florilegium 11. Exercise of love for every day, 30 December       “This is what I see in myself, and therefore I have recourse to you, Mother of Love, so that through your intercession the LIVE IMAGE OF JESUS might be engraved on me so that my heavenly Father might look on me with the same infinite love with which he contemplates, in himself, his beloved and divine Son; with the same love may he love us who are in the image of his Humanity.  We pray that this be granted to us.”   12. Exercise of love for every day, 31 December.

Celeste describes Jesus, the only Begotten Son of the Father, as the Sun, reflecting the Father … as the mirror of the Father.   She invites us to look into this mirror of the Son saying, “Those who are pure of heart know My Father because they look upon Him fixedly with a gaze of love.” and adds: “They are children of the light because with the vision of right intention, they gaze into the mirror of the divine perfections of their God.”   ‘The Mystic Who Remembered’ by Joseph Opptiz, CSsR

This is the call to transformation, to be imprinted by God’s fingers with the divine perfections of Jesus.  Thus, with our gaze fixed on the Son we reflect as in a mirror Jesus to the world.  We are called to be the hands, feet, voice and prayer of the Beloved for the life of the world.  We are mirrors of God’s love. 

I will end this reflection with liturgical dance.  I did this dance at my solemn profession in 1994.    It is called the Prayer of Commitment.  The words are very fitting for our gathering today.  The words are:

Lord Jesus, I give you my hands to do your work.

I give you my feet to go your way.
I give you my tongue to speak your words.
I give you my mind that you may think in me.
I give you my spirit that you may pray in me.
Above all, I give you my heart that you may love in me your people,
all humankind.
And I give you my whole self that you may grow in me;
So it is you, Lord Jesus, who live and work and pray in me.

 

After the liturgical dance a mirror was given to each Associate with the words,  ‘You are an image of Jesus.’   On the mirror side the name of Jesus was written and on the back a quote from Celeste,  “I no longer saw myself, but I saw You in my very self and myself transformed into You, my Most Pure Love.”

 

Questions:

How am I a ‘Mirror of Love’ witnessing to the world God’s love?

In times of trials /crosses do I ever experience joy and union with Christ, the sweetness of God and inner peace?

          How is the Blessed Virgin Mary an image of Jesus?  How can I be transformed into the likeness of her Son?

ST. ALPHONSUS METHOD OF PRAYER AND T’AI CHI

Today, August 1, we celebrate St. Alphonsus Ligouri’s anniversary of death in 1787 at the age of 91.   The Founder of the Redemptorists was born in Naples on September 27, 1696, just a month earlier than our Foundress Ven. Mother Maria Celeste Crostarosa. 

 
Alphonsus was an extremely intelligent man.   Early in his life he once made a vow never to waste a moment of time so he wrote over 100 books, painted, played the organ and composed songs.   His most famous hymn is the Italian Christmas carol, Tu Scendi Delle Stelle  (From Starry Skies Descending).    

A renowned preacher and confessor, he won the hearts of the simple people by teaching them to pray to God as to a dear friend.   This may seem ironic because Alphonsus himself was a man plagued by scruples but he recognized the truth that God was pure love and that we may approach God without fear.

          When I was a Postulant, Sr. Peg gave me a pamphlet of one of Alphonsus’ teachings that described a method of prayer which I found helpful.   It had the mnemonic device of the word ACTS which stands for Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, Supplication. 

You may well ask what does St. Alphonsus, the great moral theologian of the eighteenth century, who wrote uncountable treatises on prayer and the founder of the Redemptorists has in common with T’ai Chi, a philosophy that has its roots in sixth century BCE (Before the Common Era) Taoism?  Truthfully, not much; perhaps the only connection is that when Alphonsus was a young diocesan priest he desired to go on the missions to China.

           It is only because of my temperament did I find a connection between Alphonsus’ method of meditation and T’ai Chi: movement in meditation. 

I’m sure you have all seen people doing T’ai Chi on TV or maybe in the park.  I’ve taken a couple of basic courses in it.  The one you see people doing in the park in English is called ‘The Flowing River.’  Another form I learned once while on retreat is simple, gentle, repetitive movements that lend themselves to meditation.

          T’ai Chi has its roots in Taoism.  The Chinese mystic Lao Tse, a contemporary of Confucius, and India’s Buddha, in the sixth century BCE in his book, Tao te Ching, wrote, ‘All things come from the Way: it creates without owning, gives without demanding. This is harmony.’  The Way is Chi: the energy which flows in the harmony of nature and in each of us.   Lao Tse looked to nature to give examples:  ‘As spring overcomes the cold and autumn overcomes the heat, so calm and quiet overcomes the world.’ 

              Lao Tse’s contemplative eye on nature taught him that in order to be calm and quiet one needs to meditate so one may be engaged in the world in a harmonious fashion.


Moira '96

                You may be thinking where does the movement come into meditation?  Lao Tse said, ‘Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river.’  In the sixth century CE (Common Era) Bodhidharma, a Buddhist master did just that.  He visited China and noticed the monks there were in terrible shape from all their sitting about and meditating.  So, Bodhidarma began instructing them in exercises that flowed from his contemplation and appreciation of nature and gave the gentle exercises names like Stroke the Swallow’s Tail, White Crane Spreads Wings, Hands Passing like Clouds… 

          Year ago I wedded St. Alphonsus’ ACTS with the gentle repetitive movements of T’ai Chi.  Perhaps, if St. Alphonsus was alive today he would still heartily encourage this form of meditation and add, "Jesus is The Way, our Chi! (energy/lifeforce)   
      
            These prayerful movements can be done standing or sitting. All the motions and the thoughts flow from the heart and continue to do so with each letter of ACTS until you feel the natural end to each intention.

 The first letter A stands for Adoration.  With hands raised heart high I circle those palms up around in front of me conscious of the presence of God and adoring the Creator of all things.  The second letter C stands for Contrition.  My hands move out and back, pushing from the heart, all my failings that stand between me and God.  The letter T is for Thanksgiving.  This time my hands, palms up, come up from the side of my body to my heart in a circular motion recounting all the blessings I have received as gift in my life.  The final letter is S for Supplication.  Here my palms face down and circle heart high blessing and beseeching God’s mercy and love on my family, community, the world.

St. Alphonsus used all kinds of prayer in his life.   I can imagine he raised his hands and prayed from his heart as he taught the poor and abandoned to do likewise in these words, “Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends.  Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears— of everything that concerns you. Converse with Him confidently and frankly; for God is not wont to speak to a soul that does not speak to Him.”

Let us then, whether still or in motion, pray confidently to our dearest friend, Jesus, The Way.