Tuesday, 8 October 2013

"Fear not." Hearing God's loving laughter in the Divine Office.

Woke up ridiculously early this morning and decided to read my email... big mistake!
Memo to self: do not read email and especially not Catholic e-newsletters before (i) Morning Office to put the world into God's perspective and (ii) a decent breakfast. Both are necessary to fortify you to deal with the daily flood of Really Bad News. 
Of which one piece this morning was an absolute corker - real Handcart to Hell stuff. What was worse than the catalogue of doom-laden facts was the comment section. (Will I never learn?) Obviously some Hell-bound handcarts have been customised with slick tyres and go-faster stripes.

As I read about species-self-hate and gobbets of the hate-filled ignorance which now seems to pass for serious debate about how to handle humanity's unprecedented technical power over its own life and death, I got very depressed. Not for the first time I found myself fearing that, in today's world, Catholic truth is... well, drowning. That the Church is losing the war. Or at least, some awfully big battles. (No, wait... it got better.)

Sometimes these days, apart from the sadness of it all, I often get frightened as, aghast, I hear the Devil laughing: laughing at the inhuman paths which, in many critical respects, our world is choosing. Laughing at his triumphal persuasion of millions of people that he does not exist, which of course leaves him free to rampage at will. And laughing loudest of all (or so it seems, because it's right here in my ear) at goody-two-shoes-faithful-Catholic me, for my gloomy, weak and wobbly faith in the Omnipotence of God.

Lord,  save us! We are sinking! Mt 8:25

And I think...

Christ has no body on earth now but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world.
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless people now.
I ask myself, What can I do for heaven's sake? I am a Dominican. I am to preach, but how, Lord, how, when I am so tiny? I am just a grain of sand...

... or a grain of mustard-seed, maybe? ... 

... caught in a tsunami of anti-Christ, anti-Catholic, anti-human forces. What can I do, against so many powerful people so much cleverer than I. Charismatic, popular people, many in positions of power and influence from which they persuade my friends, my government, whole societies, even some in the Church, that their way is truth and will benefit humankind. It won't. It won't. Their way is death, for souls and for the world.

I remind myself that, even though it can feel like it in the silent pre-dawn darkness, I am not alone, and that so many other people who are cleverer than I, and charismatic, popular and influential, are Christian (many even Dominican!) - the Body of Christ! They have stronger faith than I and are better-armed than I who am just a water-carrier in the rearmost rank of what we used to call the Church Militant.

So with a deep breath I take up my little sword breviary and, as the Enemy scuttles off, his chortling turning to snarling, I begin to read, and suddenly there is the glorious sound of the Son of God laughing, MUCH louder, a cosmic laugh, loud enough to banish all my fear.

It happens every single time. There, in the page of the Divine Office for THIS day, EXACTLY the reassurance I need in THIS moment.
You looked kindly, O Lord, on your land: you ended the captivity of Jacob.
You forgave your people’s unrighteousness and covered over their sins.
Truly the Lord will give generously, and our land will be fruitful. 
Justice will walk before him and place its footsteps on his path.
Trust in the Lord for all ages, for the Lord is your strength for ever.
He knows. He hears. 

I laugh and cry at the same time, and God laughs and embraces me. Ashamed of my lack of faith, I bury my face in Jesus's breast.



And I remember that, of course, Our Lord spoke of 'the Prince of this world' for a reason and the Almighty Father not only sees all the dreadful stuff that I see but sustains it in being for love's sake when He could wipe it out. Which is what I would do, of course, being extremely stupid.

"My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways," says the Lord. Isaiah 55:8

No, Lord. Quite. Just as well.
Pilate therefore said to him, "... Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?" Jesus answered him, "You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above." John 19:1
Yes, Lord. Yes.

This Church, this 'drowning' Church (ha!) is the Body of Christ through Whom all things were made and without Whom nothing was made that was made. Oh, how fear drives out thought.

Oh, Lord, I do believe. Help thou my unbelief.

Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee:
All thing pass;
God never changes.
- St Teresa of Avila


All will be well, and all manner of things will be well. - Julian of Norwich








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