Truly Present

31 January 2012

Was it real, or imagined? Or was it real, but supernatural? One day last week, I stopped in at the chapel at Holy Cross and was stunned to find the most beautiful monstrance I've ever seen or imagined holding our Lord before me. I went to my knees and was immediately moved with a thought that "this is what you deserve, Lord, and my heart is such a sorry, shabby home for you!"

I only stayed a minute, as I had errands to run before getting back to work, but I was moved almost to tears, and left inspired and refreshed. But when I returned a couple of days later—or was it the very next day?—that familiar tacky 70's monstrance was back in its normal place.

Yet now I feel I sit before it again, again it holds forth our Lord in front of me. Only I would swear that at Holy Cross, the jewels were blue—a pale, lovely, Marian blue. I first noticed it in the chapel after Mass this morning, when I felt such a rush of emotion, of relief, and hope, wash over me, so real, so refreshing. Lord Jesus, you are truly here—and so I bow before you. My Jesus, I love you. Jesus, be to me a Jesus.

To Make This Heart

4 September 2011

How long has it been since I wielded a weed-eater? How long, indeed, since I swore I'd never touch one of the infernal things again, as I seem to remember doing? But that was before I was called to defend this home, to shelter this family, to tend this small piece of ground. That was before I had a wife who might be pleased to look out and see a back yard put in order by my hands; it was before this woman and her son inspired me so to root out every weed and thorn here, to make this place, this heart, their home.

chiru sakura

18 March 2011

—Somaru (1712-1795)

***

When I spotted this scene I wanted to capture it, despite feeling it was early in the season to be lamenting the loss of the blossoms that have only just begun to show. But then, along that theme, I began to think about the irony of the penance of Lent, while the natural world all around us springs back into joyous life. But they are intended to be together, aren't they? We discipline and deny ourselves in Lent with an eye towards a joyous Easter, a share in Christ's resurrection after this vale of tears, and the blossoms that grace the trees all too briefly yet stir our hearts to life by their beauty.

I first thought of this verse of Buson's:

But I am glad to have found this happier verse that says more what I want to say.

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