fleurordinaire

What's in a name?

With the feast of St. Therese still fresh in my mind, my thoughts turned to her religious name: Sr. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. She asked that the title "Holy Face" be added to her religious name when she received the habit of Carmel. A few weeks before her death she said that her devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus had been inspired by the words of the prophet Isaiah: "There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him: Despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not."

Behind the downcast eyes of Jesus, Therese saw the beauty of his soul; His swollen and bloodstained Face revealed His love. Writing her sister Celine she said:

"Jesus burns with love for us. Contemplate His adorable Face; behold His eyes which have lost their luster and are downcast . . .Contemplate His wounds! Look at the Face of Jesus! There you will recognize how much He loves us. . . . The King of kings humbled Himself to such a degree that His Face was hidden and He could no longer be recognized. I too desire to hide my face; I desire that only my Well-Beloved should see it, that He alone should be able to number my tears, so that He may rest His head at least in my heart and feel that in it He is known and understood."

"I understand better than ever what true glory is. He whose kingdom is not of this world shows me that there is only one kind of royalty that we should envy and desire: our royalty should consist of a willingness to be forgotten, to be considered as nothing . . . "

"There are times when God will turn the whole world upside down if thereby one single soul may come to resemble His divine Son more. That is all He wants, that is all He can want: the whole plan of divine Providence is directed to that end. All that happens to us must be regarded in the great light of this final end. That is why we all suffer - to become 'other Christs'; to be Jesus over again, and, like Him, misunderstood, persecuted and made to bear our cross. . . .To find joy in sorrow, life in death - that is the great secret by which our wounds are healed . . .but you won't find it in any of your textbooks!"

For someone who is far from God, silence is a difficult confrontation with his own self and with the rather dismal realities that are at the bottom of our soul. Hence, man enters a mentality that resembles a denial of reality. He gets drunk on all sorts of noises so as to forget who he is. Postmodern man seeks to anesthetize his own atheism.

Noises are screens that betray a fear of the divine, a fear of real life and of death. But “what man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?” (Ps 89:48). The Western world ends up disguising death so as to make it acceptable and joyful. The moment of demise becomes a noisy moment in which true silence is lost in weak, useless words expressing compassion.

This anxious response to something that makes no noise is a telling trait of fluid societies that have developed neurotic fears of silence.

A Christian cannot fear silence because he is never alone. He is with God. He is in God. He is for God. In the silence, God gives me his eyes so as to contemplate him better. Christian hope is the foundation of the true silent search of the believer. Silence is not frightening; on the contrary, it is the assurance of meeting God.

The children of God are called to live eternally with the Father. Through silence they must become accustomed to being with God. Here below, the silent prayer of the citizens of the earth is an apprenticeship in what the citizens of heaven will experience eternally. In the silence of the church in Ars, the peasant was already participating in the heavenly liturgy: “I look at him, and he looks at me!” Seated silently at the feet of Jesus, we learn to pray without ceasing and to become fearless witnesses to the Gospel.

We must beware of the racket of contemporary life. This noise imposed on us is an insidious danger for the soul. The difficulties encountered today in finding silence are more formidable than ever. This is a diabolical situation. But Christ himself had to tear himself away from the crowd so as to go off into the desert. In those immense spaces, he experienced the most intimate, the most sublime face-to-face conversations!

Today the Church has one central mission. It consists of offering silence to the priests and to the faithful. The world rejects solitude with God repeatedly and violently. Well, then, let the world keep quiet, and let silence return. . .

“When we pray we speak to God, but when we read; God speak to Us.”

"It has come to this, that I can no longer suffer because all suffering is sweet. Besides, it is a mistake to worry as to what trouble may be in store; it is like meddling with God's work. We who run in the way of love must never allow ourselves to be disturbed by anything.

If I did not simply suffer from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient; but I look only at the present moment forget the past; and I take good care not to forestall the future. When we yield to discouragement or despair it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future.

"Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows." (Luke 12:6-7)

There is no reason anyone should accept that idea of Original Sin. The idea that you need to be “saved” from an unidentifiable stain on your soul is nonsense.

Reminds me of these words by C.S Lewis:

“When I was an atheist my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust.

But how had I got this idea of just and unjust?

A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?…

Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless. I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.”

Brown Holdsworth has a decent video on this called ‘The Best Argument for God’s Existence’:

https://youtu.be/wVmKQ9pxuFU

So, no, religion does not convince us that we are ‘sick’. We KNOW that we are, made evident by the atheist above recognising our flawed nature.

And no, we don’t beg God to ‘fix us’. Through scripture, the teachings/lives of Our Lord and the Saints, surrounding ourselves with like-minded good people, the Sacraments, prayer, penance, and working each day to be more virtuous is how we become better. Recognising our flaws daily and working on them, charity, separating ourselves from the world and worldly things. It’s so wonderful. It’s fulfilling. And we do this, why? Because we have an end goal. Atheists on the other hand, have no obligation to be good, there is nothing stopping them from lying, cheating, sleeping around, getting drunk. Yet, it is what destroys us. It’s all an illusion. It’s so sad. Glory be to God I am no longer an atheist. I also find it hilarious too that they hate on us for striving to be good. Hahah