Category: God

Spera in Deo

“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

‘Twas another dark night, the candle had blown out, another soul had lost sight of the Crucifix. A room of stone, clean but empty, had fallen with the sun into a darkness, and though there had been for a while a small light, the darkness had overcome it. From the Emptiness like a heartbeat echoed the voice of the Timeless Love:

“Have I though, child? You fastened me here with your iron; I will not to leave without you driving me away as you drove these spikes out of your sight and into my limbs, and then I would wait just beyond your sight until you called for me. Love always waits, you know.
When you placed me on this torment, such violence did you use that the angels themselves did not know if you wanted to kill or detain me.
If I have remained, Beloved, can I then also abandon you alone?”

“My Lord, have I then forsaken Thee?”

The cold wind wailed and beat about the room; on the candle in the center showed a dull red spark, just visible, smouldering and kept alive by the very wind that had extinguished it. From the Nowhere which contains Everything came another voice, just as loving as the first but deeper, and somehow more ancient in Eternity:

“Beloved Son, listen to me. If you had cast me aside with all Hope, would you hear me? You seek as a blind man does now. If you would not ignore the warnings of the setting sun and refuse to bar the door against the darkness, your flame would not have gone out. But you are not so hardened with the cold that the Death will take you; Rise, close the door. I am here and none other shall enter unless you permit your heart to become too cold to sustain Love. If you truly had faith, you would see. But the little you do have is enough for now – you can still feel. Quickly now! Without Faith, Hope can not abide in you.”

The soul hesitated, a tear sliding icily down his face, and then slowly groped about. He finally found the floor, then a wall – how cold it was, and covered with ice – and at last it caught the door, pushed it closed, and waited in the dark, shivering. Listening desperately for the Voice again, he heard only his own heart. No sound could he hear, no guiding Voice – But he knew where his table was. That very faint red spot in the air marked the candle on it, and the matches should be next to it, if he recalled correctly.
He slowly crept forward, right hand in front of him, and after several long seconds he found the table. Another moment of clumsy groping found him the matches, and the smouldering wick was still there.
All that he had to do was to strike a light – but he was afraid. Frightened of the rocks that formed his walls, the emptiness of the room; so apprehensive of seeing again the Crucifix –
But he feared more the darkness, and the pain of sight is better than the loneliness of the Night. He knew how long the night would last if he did not end it soon.

A small scratching, then a little light flared up, one flame ignited a second. A warmth which the soul had not felt since the sun fell off the Mountain days ago filled the room, and his heartbeat once again kept time with the world.

“My Saviour, my Hope, why hast Thou not forsaken me?”

A third Voice rang out, holding in it the notes of an Ancient Wisdom, like the liquid whiteness of a full moon:

“Does a Lover abandon his Beloved? Though a man ask for Hell, Mercy remains to him. The drawing forth and cleansing of sinners is the delight of Mercy, not their condemnation. You know this, and yet you question as though you had not the worth of a sparrow. You have seen the Sign, why should the Begotten from Whom I proceed permit you to hold him as you do, if not to show you the way of Love?

The soul was tired, and wanted to sleep – he could now, the Darkness was gone. Before he could though, he wanted to know: “Do I speak to Three or One?”

From the corner where the Crucifix hung, a Whisper of Eternity brushed and swirled for a moment. It was as though all three Voices were combined, and as the soul lay down to rest in the little light of his heart with God:

“What does your Faith tell you?” came the Loving Reply.

Christus est Natus

Having few words to say myself after reading Things concerning the subject, The Nativity of Christ, I am simply providing the following upon which to think:

“Every mother, when she picks up the young life that has been born to her, looks up to the heavens to thank God for the gift which made the world young again. But here was a Mother, a Madonna, who did not look up. She looked down to Heaven, for this was Heaven in her arms.”
~ Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

“When I was present by the manger of the Lord in Bethlehem I beheld a Virgin of extreme beauty wrapped in a white mantle and a delicate tunic through which I perceived her virginal body. With her was an old man of great honesty and they had with them an ox and ass. These entered the cave and the man having tied them to the manger went out and brought in to the Virgin a lighted candle which having done he again went outside so as not to be present at the birth. Then the Virgin pulled off the shoes from her feet, drew off the white mantle that enveloped her, removed the veil from her head laying it beside her, thus remaining only in her tunic with her beautiful golden hair falling loosely over her shoulders. Then she produced two small linen cloths, and two woolen ones of exquisite purity and fineness which she had brought to wrap round the Child to be born, and two other small cloths to cover His head, and these too she put beside her. When all was thus prepared the Virgin knelt with great veneration in an attitude of prayer; her back was to the manger, her face uplifted to heaven and turned toward the East. Then, her hands extended and her eyes fixed on the sky she stood as in an ecstasy, lost in contemplation, in a rapture of divine sweetness. And while she stood thus in prayer I saw the Child in her womb move; suddenly in a moment she gave birth to her own Son from whom radiated such ineffable light and splendour that the sun was not comparable to it while the divine light totally annihilated the material light of St. Joseph’s candle. So sudden and instantaneous was this birth that I could neither discover nor discern by what means it had occurred. All of a sudden I saw the glorious Infant lying on the ground naked and shining, His body pure from any soil or impurity. Then I heard the singing of the angels of miraculous sweetness and beauty. When the Virgin felt she had borne her Child immediately she worshiped Him, her hands clasped in honour and reverence saying: ‘Be welcome my God, my Lord, my Son.’ Then, as the Child was whining and trembling from the cold and hardness of the floor where He was lying, He stretched out His arms imploring her to raise Him to the warmth of her maternal love. So His Mother took Him in her arms, pressed Him to her breast and cheek, and warmed Him with great joy and tender compassion. She then sat down on the ground laying the Child on her lap and at once began to bestow on Him much care tying up His small body, His legs and arms in long cloths, and enveloped His head in the linen garments, and when this was done the old man entered, and prostrating himself on the floor he wept for joy. And in no way was the Virgin changed by giving birth, the color of her face remained the same nor did her strength decline. She and Joseph put the Child in the manger, and worshiped Him on their knees with immense joy until the arrival of the Kings who recognized the Son from the likeness to His Mother.”

From the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden

Venerable Brethren, may the Virgin Mother of God hear the prayers of Our paternal heart – which are yours also – and obtain for all a true love of the Church – she whose sinless soul was filled with the divine spirit of Jesus Christ above all other created souls, who “in the name of the whole human race” gave her consent “for a spiritual marriage between the Son of God and human nature.” Within her virginal womb Christ our Lord already bore the exalted title of Head of the Church; in a marvelous birth she brought Him forth as the source of all supernatural life, and presented Him newly born, as Prophet, King and Priest to those who, from among Jews and Gentiles, were the first to come to adore Him. Furthermore, her only Son, condescending to His mother’s prayer in “Cana of Galilee,” performed the miracle by which “his disciples believed in Him.” It was she, the second Eve, who, free from all sin, original or personal, and always more intimately united with her Son, offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father for all the children of Adam, sin-stained by his unhappy fall, and her mother’s rights and her mother’s love were included in the holocaust. Thus she who, according to the flesh, was the mother of our Head, through the added title of pain and glory became, according to the Spirit, the mother of all His members. She it was through her powerful prayers obtained that the spirit of our Divine Redeemer, already given on the Cross, should be bestowed, accompanied by miraculous gifts, on the newly founded Church at Pentecost; and finally, bearing with courage and confidence the tremendous burden of her sorrows and desolation, she, truly the Queen of Martyrs, more than all the faithful “filled up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ…for His Body, which is the Church”; and she continues to have for the Mystical Body of Christ, born of the pierced Heart of the Savior, the same motherly care and ardent love with which she cherished and fed the Infant Jesus in the crib.

Mystici Corporis Christi, Paragraph 110, Pope Pius XXI

Light Between the Doors

Evening fell, the evening bell
Rolled out the hour and silent fell,
Stone and gold, which the Word hold,
Crimson glowed with the bell as it tolled.

Sounded again as tired men
Cast eyes up to the spire –
An archangel’s spear, the demons’ fear,
Of the guards that never tire.

Within the walls, dimming halls,
A watch I set with the candles’ flame,
A heart for a Heart, a love for true Love,
To understand further His Name.

And pacing the corridors seldom seen,
A light on the floor dimly shone,
Flung to the marble, a ruddy sheen –
Like blood on a long-ancient bone.

There were the doors – forgotten ways,
From a path behind the Throne,
Through the crack in the oak, the candlelight broke,
And I saw that He was alone.

There I halted a moment, and waited a while,
Seconds turned minutes to but a brief thought,
I was witness to places a millionfold built,
Wherein the only true battle was fought.

In the darkness still-standing I stood,
Seeing the glow through the wood,
And it seemed to me that I looked through a Tree . . .
. . . where Eternity lingered on.

Being a Challenge

Prepare for an unexpected dive into a random topic:
I have had Thoughts assemble (grudgingly on this cloudy day) and thus have put them down here.


I always did like St. Michael, and not for one reason. He is, firstly, an angel. Those tend to be spectacular beings of themselves, evil or not. He is among the legions of angels devoted to loving and serving God forever, so there’s that going for him too. (That’s made obvious by the abbreviated ‘Sanctus’ before his name…in case you were wondering.)
Those named after him have as their patron saint, the centurion of Christ’s armies – and what a name has he!

Names on earth, like all worldly things, are temporary. St. John the Evangelist speaks of a new name – a secret name, known to the person and God alone – given to all in Paradise, and one can only imagine what it could be. I imagine that it will perfectly describe the person as he is.

(A thought on the side; maybe those in Hell are doomed to a name in the same way with which they are forced bear for eternity? We don’t know . . . being nameless, without meaning and identity may be among the greater intellectual torments.)

I assume that the angels all have names as unique as the species of each, already set in stones, and the few that we know are rusted-down versions so that we poor fools can understand them a little.

We know what the Archangel’s name means: ‘Quis ut Deus? – Who is like God?’
It’s not a rhetorical question (the answer being ‘Nobody’ or ‘Everybody’ depending on your argument and both can be correct), nor a statement that he is like God, but a challenge. A defiant battle-cry at the fleeing demons. Who IS like God?

It’s a challenge to us as well. ‘ All you commanded to be perfect as the Father is – Who is like God?’ and then if the angels have humour as I’d like them to, he’d ask ‘Who among you is?’ – Not specifically directed at individual persons, if only to extract the usual answer to start a philosophical debate.

We stand here, heads down, kicking the dust nervously and deliver the expected reply with minds full of humanity’s failings and voices full of woe: “…Nobody….”

And the vibrant commander of myriad superlegions laughs.

Are You Lonely?

“Are you lonely child, or
Lost amidst a lengthening night?
I stand here timeless waiting for
You to speak to me, the Light.

Are you lonely, dearest heart?
Do you wish to rest secure?
Sleep in faith. About you are
My warriors shining from afar.

Are you lonely, love of mine?
Is your soul a holy shrine?
Therein my Heart will take abode,
If you will but have me.”

…If at night awake you lie,
Pray with He who chose to die,
In the Hour of Darkness; with Him take a part,
Give comfort to the suffering Heart.

‘My Kingdom is Not of This World’.

Well, it’s been just over a month since the last post. So many things have happened since then that I had little time to keep up here. Finishing a year at college, travels, settling into a new routine with work and Getting Sick mixed in took up a significant amount of time.

But here I am at last, with a Partial-Maybe (short) answer to a question/idea/odd notion which has been in my head for years, and will probably never leave since if nothing else, it is fun to mentally exploit.

The Tenth Crusade: Why not, right? Why did all the past crusades fail, and…could we get the tenth one going?

It came to me a week ago that Christ gave us the answer: “My kingdom is not of this world…” (John 18:36)

Christianity (TRUE Christianity) was never meant to be established permanently here. The world is it’s base, to bring the world to God, but the Kingdom of God is not OF the world – just IN it.
The War for the Cross is ongoing. It just doesn’t necessarily mean starting a physical war. That’s what the world does; utilizing only things it understands for its own ends. Until such a time as we are summoned to God, our fight involves nothing more than doing what is given us to do in our own capacity and time.
Establishing fortresses of stone and conquering lands with swords won’t win you Heaven, and it may not aid anyone else. For most of us, doing that would be far beyond our physical limitations, to speak nothing of the spiritual.
Getting up every day and living every moment in Charity, accomplishing each task, being patient with the next little sibling; like steel rings that make up a coat of mail, all those little things will eventually come together and habitually guard your soul.

NOT, mind you, that this in any way means I won’t do something odd like flying a Knights Templar flag at the Walk For Life next year. . . I just won’t be going all-out and summoning a secret war council in Constantinople on September 2nd. (Please tell me you know how ironic that would be.)



**I hope to one day prepare a fully-organized rant. A goal of mine this summer is to accomplish that.

Another Midnight Thought: Confusion

Good evening! It’s almost the morning of tomorrow, but the night is still young. I’ve been thinking of one of the Impossible-To-Understand Things. (Two things, actually) Care to jump in?

Do you ever consider that each second brings you closer to your death, but not an instant closer to the end of your story?

(1). We have an Author who wrote us into His book, with a beautiful and mysterious beginning but no end. I can’t fathom how that works, but nobody can.
(2). You are literally forming the quality of the unimaginable length of being that you will have. We’re here as long as we need to be to make a choice, given thousands of little options (and several major ones) concerning how we choose, and then the rest of eternity to endure the consequent results.

I don’t know that ‘being’ is measured in length, because that ‘length’ has to be of something, and existence doesn’t have size in the manner with which we are concerned. ‘Length of time’ we could say, but is there time to eternity? Certainly not as we know ‘time’.

I’ve been talking about this with a friend while writing, and am consistently becoming more confused. Like I said at the start, it’s an Impossible Thing.

No, wait. I rambled on to another thought: We’re in eternity already. Our existence is forever and right now we’re in the first tiny stage of it.

I could go on for a few hours, but I, being a human, require sleep, and it’s early morning now.

Short little thing here, but it is just a Thought, and may be continued at any time. Do feel free to contribute to Thoughts.

Easter Sunday

Darkness. It filled the world, overflowed the sky. For a day the sun shone helplessly on the earth, and then it sank sobbing, in a bloody anger, down into the cold mountains. For a second time, night came but the world was no darker for it. We waited, hoping for the impossible.

A light shone in the darkness. It was a spark which touched a dry palm leaf; a breath of wind kissed it and in as little time as could be, a flame rose up, caught little sticks, and the whole rose like a fountain of light and heat, defying the night with a bold light.
From this fire candles were lit, and the dark fled from the Church.

Christ is risen!
Yes, ring those bells, be silent no more. Sing the song of the angels at His birth as he re-enters the world from the grave.

The Lord is risen! Once for all time, Sin’s dark power was annihilated and life won for all men.

Christus surrexit! The Temple has been raised up though brought to the ground. For the first time in millennia we can worship with Hope.

Dominus surrexit! He lived and died for all, He now rises for all. Forever He lives, King of Heaven and Master of Hell. He holds the keys.

(There is no mention of the Blessed Mother at this time, but I personally think that she was among the first, if not the first to see Him.
She shared the sorrow of the Cross, I’m rather certain that she just as fully shared in the joys of the Resurrection.)

Death is dead and the One who called Himself ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’ is now eternally among the living. Follow Him now, up to your Calvary and die to live with Him.

May you all have a peaceful and blessed Easter Season, and share in the happiness of the Risen Christ.


Good Friday

With slow, heavy steps, a man walks from the Holy City towards a hill, blood dripping, marking his path. He carries a burden that all men should have borne save this one – the weight of which would crush humanity to unending fire. He has been roughly treated all night, taken from governor to king and back, beaten relentlessly with heavy whips, mocked and insulted, and now he has forced on him the instrument of his death, a cross.

Why did we send our King to die? He lived His life in perfection and now goes to die for the crimes of humanity – innumerable sins, sins of blood, sins of the flesh, black souls with their midnight minds, curses of damnation, those that were, and each one that has not been yet, all heaped in a mountain so fell and grievous that only God could overcome it.

He reaches the top and there offers Himself on the altar of the Cross to His Father.
Cold iron driven through hands and feet, muscles and bone racked and stretched, splinters buried in wounds made fresh again when the clothes were pulled from clotting blood, hard dead thorns beaten into the head.

Do we weep for the suffering Christ or our sins which made Him so?
We ask: What have we done? but do we question ‘What are we doing?’
In the millennia since this moment, have we changed? Are we going to change, or continue to strike God with ingratitude?

In all this infinite injustice He prays for us still, “Father, forgive them . . .”

Do not let this Death be for nothing. When someone sacrifices for us we take notice, but how long will Christ be ignored?
There He stands, a mediator between Heaven and Earth, suspended by the sins of men, praying for us all – the Priest, the Sacrifice. A worse crime can never be conceived, no better act imagined. By a death of Love, unending death ceases unless we make it again.

And now, when ‘it is finished’, He willingly dies.

The sky which darkened in anger swells, the earth, baptized in Blood groans with pain and writhes, crying out for vengeance, tombs are shivered and dead men rise against Creation’s darkest moment – but this is the Hour of Mercy. Justice has been satisfied and the Cross stands dark, drunk with blood against the seething heavens. The murderers’ hatred is full. They go now, back to their idol, not knowing what they have done.

Silence falls with the tears of the few who loved Him enough to bear the moment. No heart can break more than our Lady’s did this day. She followed her Son, saw His pain and shared it; counted the bloody steps, heard the iron on iron through flesh. Her child, whom she once gave birth to, cared for with all the love a mother can have – she watched helplessly all the offenses hurled at Him, unable to protect or console Him. All she could do was surrender to the sword of flame that was thrust into her Immaculate Heart, and weep for the sins of her children.
Forgive us, dear Lady, for what we have done.

Evening is growing and a wave of darkness encroaches on the horizon of tomorrow’s sun. The Church has nothing left to say. Christ is dead.

We bury Him now in the heart of the earth, and turn away.

Where to go . . . how can one hide from the pain, the sorrow?
The only Love is dead, the Heart broken, the body exhausted from weeping.

No, there is no place to run, to hide. There is only an empty soul wanting for God.

And this is why we were given a Mother. Mary, the Morning Star – follow her now, in sorrow, in peace. Follow her, go to her as you would your mother. Fall into her arms and let her comfort you as she would have Christ in His agony – yes, weep for your sins and ask her to forgive you for wounding her, to pray for you to her Son that He have mercy on you.

We depart from the tomb now, and wait for the Rising.

Saviour of the world,
Give to me the strength
To carry my cross with you,
And the courage to embrace it to the end.
Let me die with you,
So that I may rise with you to life.

Have mercy on us and on the whole world, O Lord, and remember me when You enter into Your Kingdom.


Holy Thursday


The sun has set, Mass is ended and the Blessed Sacrament has been moved from the tabernacle to the altar of repose.
This night we remember the Last Supper of Jesus with His apostles, His prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, betrayal and arrest.
We watch and pray as He asked His companions to . . .

At the Passover the Israelites sprinkled the blood of a lamb on their doorposts as a sign that their household belonged to the Lord.
Do we do the same? Is the Blood of Christ in our hearts, is it around the door guarding against evil entry? Too often, I think, we consume the Sacrifice without truly taking Him into our hearts, or worse, have our wills directed contrary to our actions as Judas did – giving Our Lord a kiss to identify Him to His enemies, bringing Him into unloving company.

Jesus was bleeding before His enemies laid hands on Him. The Blood was not sprinkled over a door, but signed the very earth itself and the legions of angels which could have executed justice on the world waited over it for their King.

If you’re one of those to whom nights of little sleep are not foreign, try offering one of those hours each night in reparation for the sins which He bled for then. Be a companion now, since there was no one when He wished for someone to be vigilant with Him, to pray with Him, to comfort His torn Heart.

We continue to follow Him tomorrow to the Death . . .