1. Jer 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, 31:3-4 I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. I will build you up again and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Isaiah 43:4 You are precious and honored in my sight, and I love you.
2. Hosea’s wife…Hosea 2:16-22
3. The Spiritual Canticle: the hiding and drawing of the Lord to his bride. The sharing of a nuptial love.
4. 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear
5. Wounds as doorways to God’s heart, to my heart. Wounds as points of union with the Wounded heart of Christ. Wounds as windows that let in light. Christ’s wounds as His vulnerability that gave love perfectly. Wounds as an exchange of self. My wounds meet his wounds in a fusion and become a path, and his blood flows into my heart and mine into his. For my wounded heart to touch His wounded heart, I must allow the thorns to press into me as well, with trust, knowing the deeper the thorns the closer is his heart to mine. An invitation to ‘compassion’ to suffer with him. To console him.
6. Offering myself as a victim to Merciful Love- to Divine Mercy ( from prayer of St Therese) “I OFFER MYSELF AS A VICTIM OF HOLOCAUST TO YOUR MERCIFUL LOVE, asking You to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within You to overflow into my soul” and to give you a moment of consolation, an offering of my weakness, my complete need for your mercy, to perhaps give you a moment of respite from the flames of love that burn unreceived in your heart.
7. John 17:1-26 Praying this with my name in the place of ‘they and them’. Very deeply intimate prayer of Christ for me.
8. Myself as a Chalice…Mt 13:44 I am the field that God hid a treasure in, and in his joy, sold all he had and purchased with his life. A Chalice begins as flecks of unseen gold scattered in dirt. A field only sees itself as dirt, sees its value as what is on the surface. But it is torn up, dug up, and the dirt is cleaned off, chiseled away, until the fragments of Gold remain exposing the true identity, the true worth of that field that seemed to be only dirt. The gold is purified and melted in fire. It changes. It is poured out, heated to liquid, into the mold of a new being- the rough shape of a chalice. Then, Hollowed out, carved, emptied- empty with a purpose- empty while being made to receive. Hammered into shape, polished abrasively until a reflection can be seen in it of the one who holds it. Created to hold the blood of God- to be filled with Him, to give him. An emptiness meant to hold nothing else but God, a sacred space where nothing else can be, a thirst for what it is created to receive. My heart as a place of sacrifice and transformation. Purified to be able to receive his own blood. Receiving the blood of Christ, Christ himself, to give Him to others. As a chalice I am filled by Him in the Eucharist and he mine and I his- He fills and gives me to others, and in giving me allows me to give Him.
9. Alabaster jars: Luke 7:36-50 Alabaster is beautiful… I think of the windows in the DG, and the Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls…but it’s true value is in what it releases…in the windows that is light, in the gospel it is perfume, in the alabaster jars in my heart it is love, faith, detachment, self-offering, trust, faith, simplicity. The gospel of the woman who broke the alabaster jar and poured it out on Christ’s feet, washed them with her tears and dried them. What alabaster jars do I have left to break and anoint him with? What tears left to cry? What love left to show?
TRUST
1. 1 Cor 2:9 What no eye has seen what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived are the things God has prepared for those who love him and Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord
2. The desert….but am I Moses or Joshua?
3. The ocean: in 2 ways: 1. As a shell tossed in the waves on the shore and carried back out into the deep, then again against the rocks and washed back, over and over, surrounded by the ocean, polished and smoothed. The ocean, as Christ’s heart and as a journey deeper into him, from the fun on the sand to the warm shallows to gaining strength in the waves, to going deeper floating into the calm deep, to storms that give me nowhere else to go but to the unknown deep below the surface
4. John 20:11-17 Mary Magdalene in agony, empty, alone, not understanding the empty tomb. Alone, in pain, but faithful to seeking him, continuing to be with him, Looking for the Jesus she had known, looking for a dead man, not seeing how he wanted to reveal himself in a new, unknown way, until he called her name. Luke 24:13-35 similarly, disciples, empty, lost, ‘seeking the King of Israel’ didn’t recognize him in the new way he revealed himself until he gave them the Eucharist. The risen Christ reveals himself in a new way. The cross, and the cross in me, is his place of transformation…do I look in the emptiness and seek God as he had shown me himself, or will I sit in the silence and allow Him to reveal his Risen self when he decides to.
HIS VOICE
1. Via Pulchritudinis- beauty in art, in words, in music, in nature, in people ( especially the saints) as a path from His heart to mine
2. Phil4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things – ever since university this has resonated deeply with me and inspired me
