it has been an amazing week thus far at my first home in Heart's Home--Brooklyn. I have come to realize that my life in the past 3 months has really taken the form of a school. And this month, my classes are really teaching me the worth and the practice of perseverance.
God has worked so many miracles already...opening my eyes wider, my heart wider, making my hands stronger and grasping Him alone, giving me encouragement through His Presence in the Eucharist, as well as His presence in others. Oh I cannot be more thankful for this little hiccup of a situation which landed me back in the States so unexpectedly, but that has given me so much grace and peace. I find myself constantly wondering...."Lord, why do you love me so much!"
but my focus right now is holding on. "Hold on" because in the midst of all this grace and mercy...the thing we must remember as humans who are impatient, anxious, controlling, and prone to weakness and blindness....is that we must hold on. Especially in moments like those I have been living the past month (and I am a beginner...there are so many people out there who learned this lesson way before me and are seasoned veterans by now), the holding on has been paired with blindness...it has been a holding on to things unseen. It has been a holding on to HOPE.
'The 5th condition is to obey COURAGEOUSLY not giving way before any difficulty, temptation, or repugnance which may arise in the path of holy obedience. "Do ye manfully, and let your heart be strengthened, all ye that hope in the LORD," says the Psalmist. It is as if he were to say: There is no doubt but that you will encounter many difficulties, since the path of virtue is hedged in by thorns and Satan makes every effort to thwart your pious intentions; cut to the quick by this glorious, meritorious virtue, he rages at seeing you set all your store in practicing it with every requisite condition and invents a thousand and one tricks and stratagems to discourage you. But take heart! you HOPE in the Lord; He will not fail to lend you His divine assistance; He will give you the means and the strength to pursue the way you have entered upon and overcome your enemies. "Should tribulation thunder," says St. Bernard,"should persecution arise, should sinners lay shares for you, should the wicked try to hinder your advance, do not therefore depart from the path of obedience." For the evil does not concern himself very much that we begin to obey perfectly, provided that we do not persevere for long. But what is the use of all the other qualities, as the same saint remarks, if the strength is lacking which establishes the other virtues in the fortress of constancy, arming them so well that the fury of this persecutor cannot expect to vanquish them.'
St. Vincent Ferrer
Perseverance more than anything is needed because therein are the roots of the springtime blossoms of our souls...virtues. Merely holding on is an apparent inefficiency, as if we are not moving forward but exhausting ourselves by wasting our time, remaining where we are. But really, I have come to the conclusion that perseverance is not a stagnant holding on, hanging, waiting for things to pass, until joys overflow at some future date (until all good things just come to you without any trial or work of your own), until you are at peace and everything is free and easy. It is an active holding on, it is the activity of holding on so much to what you believe that you let yourself go, you surrender yourself into the arms of what you believe. To hold onto what you believe so much so as to surrender to its power and guidance...the arms of your Creator in whom you have the greatest faith. And by resting in those arms, resting in apparent inactivity, you are carried unharmed and not wearied to the land in which you will thrive and virtue will encompass your life. it is not always about having something to do, some advance to make, something to give, some contribution to make. Sometimes the greatest activity is to remain malleable in the hands of your Creator. Holding on to what you believe in, is at once a grasping surrender. (oh the oxymorons abound)
hold on to what you believe in the light
when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight
oh hold on to what you believe in the light
when the darkness has robbed you of all your sight.
"While traveling in a coal-mine district,
I noticed how very dingy the towns appeared.
The coal-dut seemed to blacken buildings, trees, shrubs--everything.
But as a foreman and I were walking near the mines,
I noticed a beautiful white flower.
Its petals were as pure as if it were blooming in a daisy field.
'What care the owner of this plant must take of it," said I,
"to keep it so free from dust and dirt."
"See here," said the foreman, and taking up a handful of coal-dust,
threw it over the flower.
It immediately ran off, and left the flower as stainless as before.
"It has enamel," the foreman explained,
"which prevents any dust from clinging to it. I think it must have been created for just
such a place."
tempted, exposed, tried, and tested. the flower remains there. remains white. remains unaffected. the enamel is in a shade of grace by which it is illuminated despite its formidable surroundings. and so must our souls be illuminated with this same grace, and in this grace persevere against the strongest of attacks against hope, the most dire circumstances in which we find ourselves completely surrounded by darkness and dirtiness and yet remain in the light, remain pure, remain a reflection of the beauty this world is meant for. the flower did not give itself the enamel. the flower does not enable itself to persevere against the winds of coal-ash, or even the rain of ash directly from the foreman's hand. so do we remain incapable of giving ourselves an illuminating enamel of grace and perseverance. But perseverance is what we were created for, we were created for hope. We were created to shine in the midst of a dingy world in order to point others toward the reason for our hope.
what it comes down to....
where you invest your love,
you invest your life
so hold on to love
hold on to life
hold on to what you believe
hold on to the hand that gives you hope.
hold on.
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