Always Advent

Couple of quotes from B16 about what he calls “anarchical freedom”:

Here’s the first one:

I would like to glance briefly at perhaps the most radical philosophy of freedom in our century, that of J.P. Sartre, inasmuch as it brings out clearly the full magnitude and seriousness of the question. Sartre regards man as condemned to freedom. In contrast to the animal, man has no “nature.” The animal lives out its existence according to laws it is simply born with; it does not need to deliberate what to do with its life.

Anarchic freedom, taken radically, does not redeem, but makes man a miscarried creature, a pointless being. (Pope Benedict XVI, from Truth and Freedom, 1996 http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/TRUEFREE.htm)

And the second one:

…the various forms of dissolving marriages today, as well as the free unions and the ‘trial marriages’, including pseudo-marriage between people of the same sex, are, rather, expressions of an anarchical freedom, which passes itself off, wrongly, for a true liberation of man. Such pseudo-freedom is based on making the body banal, which inevitably includes making man banal. (Pope Beneict XVI, 6 June 2005, at the Ecclesial Congress of the Diocese of Rome on “Family and Christian Community: Formation of the Person and Transmission of the Faith”)

No matter how great your sufferings are, your victory over them is in silence.
— Desert father, name unknown

My mom has a friend from Greece. When I first met her she greeted me with an embrace and that famous European “double kiss” –- one on my right cheek, one on my left.

She took note of my surprise. “You’re not familiar with this greeting, Clare?”

I told her I had seen people greet each other that way many times, but no one had ever greeted me that way.

She asked me if I knew the symbolic meaning of a kiss on both cheeks.

I told her I did not.

“In Greek culture, it means that when I greet you, I greet and accept both sides of you, the good and the bad.”

I thought that was great, but…

…I imagine it’s sometimes easier to greet a stranger that way than someone you know well. Haven’t most of us experienced the hard reality that the people you know best are sometimes the hardest ones to accept and to love? Are there times, even in Greek culture, when people can’t bear to offer the “double-kiss” greeting? What do Greeks and others who practice that custom do at those times?

How about when looking in a mirror? Can I accept the fact that there are two sides to myself: the “new creation,” transformed in Christ, and the “old man,” still struggling for dominance years after I’ve “formally” broken ties?

That’s part of the great battle everyone fights.

May I direct you to Always Advent’s historic first post?

Not too amazing, I’ll admit. How about the eighth or so thing I ever posted–a review of an old episode of Star Trek: The Original Series.

The fruit of silence is prayer.
The fruit of prayer is faith.
The fruit of faith is love.
The fruit of love is service.
The fruit of service is peace.

– Mother Teresa

Links

EWTN entry

Catholic.net article

Mother Teresa of Calcutta Center

Mother Teresa’s Nobel Peace Prize, 1979

Mother Teresa entry at Wikipedia

Time Magazine online: Mother Teresa is one of the “Time 100″

Missionaries of Charity

Had any silence today?

“We must be inspired by a holy restlessness…

…restlessness to bring to everyone the gift of friendship with Christ.” (Pope Benedict XVI)

Someone sent me this — it may be apocryphal, but I thought it was nice. It’s a poem Audrey Hepburn wrote when asked to share her “beauty tips.”
It was read at her funeral years later…

For attractive lips , speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored,
renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed;
never throw out anyone.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand,
you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands;
one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.

“It is a very fine thing to feel ashamed of oneself when one realizes one’s own imperfections and misery, but the feeling must not drag on lest one lose heart. It is necessary to raise the heart to God with a holy confidence, founded not in our strength but in God. We indeed change, but God never does; He always remains equally good and merciful toward us, whether we are weak and imperfect or perfect and strong. I always say that our misery is the throne of God’s mercy, and so we must realize that the greater our misery, the greater should be our confidence in Him.”
(St. Francis de Sales, Spiritual Discourses II; O. VI, p. 22

“During the course of the day, recall as often as possible that you are in God’s presence. Consider what God does and what you are doing. You will see His eyes turned toward you and constantly fixed on you with incomparable love. Then you will say to Him, “O God, why do I not look always at You, just as You always look at me? Why do You think so often of me, O Lord, and why do I think so seldom of You?” Where are we, O my soul? God is our true place, and where are we?”

(St. Francis de Sales, INT. Part II, Ch. 12; O. III, p. 92)

Gabrielle at Contemplative Haven has a good quote from Thomas Merton:

Today, before the seventh and eighth stations of the Cross, I was terribly conscious that I was only saying words. The Lord permits our indifference before the Stations of the Cross so that we may realize that at best we are still indifferent to His sacrifice, and can’t be anything but indifferent. We cannot suffer His pains, unless He lets us do so in a miracle – we can suffer our own indifference to His pains. To realize that God is dying and that we are indifferent is to stand on the edge of an inconceivable agony.

http://gabrielle.stblogs.com/2008/02/18/monday-morning-with- merton-inconceivable/

“True Contentment is NOT when we have everything we want, but when we WANT everything we have.” – unknown