Today I came across one of my grandfather's old books. The Love That Waits for You, by (then) Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen, 1949. I loved this part, excerpted from pages 9-11, and it makes a good Lenten meditation....
When God made you, He put two trap-doors into your soul, and through them the Love that waits for you breaks in on you, though you may not always recognize Him.
The first of these trap-doors is your love of goodness.
In chasing after the isolated tidbits of what is good, your soul is really in pursuit of Goodness, and Goodness is God. Your every quest for excitement, your every love of a good friend, your every comparison of good and better, implies some Goodness beyond all good things, and therefore is a want of God.
To say that you want good things but not Goodness which is God-ness, is just like saying you like the sunbeams but you hate the sun....
The second trap-door by which God enters your soul is your ennui, your satiety, your fed-upness, your loneliness, your melancholy, your sadness.
Every libido, every passion, every craving of the body is finite, concrete, carnal, and therefore bores you, but there is still one choice that has never been made, one great chord that has not yet been struck, and that is the infinite.
Your ennui means there is still something to be had; you possess, but not all; you know, but not everything; you love, but not always....
There is not a single soul among you at which God has not knocked thousands of times....
Your discontent, confusion, fear and unhappiness is His way of telling you that you are restless without Him for Whom you were made....
It seems like I can sense the unease, or the second trap door, in so many around me lately. As I increase my devotions during this Lenten season, my desire for the first trap door is palpable, yet elusive all at the same time. I just turned 60, have experienced a health issue that has and is slowing me way down since the first of the year (non life threatening and I will recover), still traversing the ravages of my son's divorce and how it has left our family "not the same", and melancholy seems to be hovering in a cloud always close by. I have several close girlfriends who don't seem to have many bright spots in their lives these days either.
ReplyDeleteBut all is not futile! I am sensing in myself a yearning for intimacy with the Blessed Mother and Jesus that has the earmarks of taking my fathlife to a new level. Never having an ease of closeness to Mary as my dear deceased mom had, I recently read 33 Days by Fr. Gaitley and have committed to daily (almost) rosaries this lent. The last two nights I have prayed it with Fr. Rocky on Relevant radio ap - something different is happening already - praise be to God. My heart is being drawn IN TO hers, ever so strangely and mysteriously.
Thank you for this email, Leila. Blessings to you and your family this lent!
Marge, yes! This is God at work in the soul! He is drawing you closer. I will pray for you and the whole family! And oh, the ravages of divorce on a family.... :( If could you could email me at littlecatholicbubble@gmail.com I'd like to ask you about that for possibly an anonymous statement for my next book....
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