The love of Christ present in the darkness of faith

These words by my dear friend St Titus Brandsma, are becoming my own words more and more each day. When something feels so true from the depths of your heart, it can’t be explained or understood - just felt. 

So many people love me and I have more love in my life than many could ever wish for. But there’s still a darkness, a deep ache and empty cold. Yet even there, Jesus loves me and reaches out to me and I know he’s in control, all I can do is keep walking in dark faith and trusting he’ll bring me home. The more you leap into the woundedness and pain, the deeper Jesus takes you and brings you out the other side through his glorious wounds. 

I’m not there yet, I’m not guaranteed I ever will be. But whatever happens, Blessed be the name of my Lord and Savior (Job 1:21), now and forever. Whether I live or die, it’s all for his glory (Romans 14:8) and my Redeemer lives (Job 19:25) who will be faithful to me if I persevere to the end (Matthew 24:13, 2 Timothy 2:13). 

——- 

O Jesus, when I gaze on You

Once more alive, that I love You

And that your heart loves me too

Moreover as your special friend.

Although that calls me to suffer more

Oh, for me all suffering is good,

For in this way I resemble You

And this is the way to Your Kingdom.

I am blissful in my suffering

For I know it no more as sorrow

But the most ultimate elected lot

That unites me with You, O God.

O, just leave me here silently alone,

The chill and cold around me

And let no people be with me

Here alone I grow not weary.

For Thou, O Jesus, art with me

I have never been so close to You.

Stay with me, with me, Jesus sweet,

Your presence makes all things good for me.

- St Titus Brandsma O.Carm

My patron - St Jerome of Stridon with crucifix, statue by Bernini 

Don’t run from your Shepherd, allow him to heal and love you

For those who may not know, I’ve been unwell past week and half with bronchitis and asthma issues. On Friday I got taken to emergency by ambulance because I couldn’t breathe and they suspected pneumonia. In the ER that day I honestly thought I was dying, and told Jesus he can take me and I’m ready to go because I love him. But as the priest who gave me the Sacraments of Confession, Anointing of the Sick and Apostolic Pardon said to me: “I don’t think you are going anywhere yet, the Lord still has plans for you”.

Thankfully I don’t have pneumonia, but I have a viral infection from Rhinovurus,that turned into bacterial infection, plus bronchitis and asthma. So I’m still in hospital and having to humbly learn to heal, be patient, allow myself time to heal physically as well as emotionally and spiritually. I will probably be here at least another day or so. 

I’ve been so blessed by God already these 3 days in hospital so far. My parish priest visited me, my Coptic Abouna visited me and brought me orban (blessed agape bread) and gave me Coptic Anointing of the Sick, my mum has been everyday, my parish priest brought me Holy Communion yesterday and I cried. Today my spiritual director is coming to visit me and offered to bring me Holy Communion. I have a picture of St Tius in my room and I’ve been evangelising the nurses who ask about my miraculous medal or see my breviary, I tell them that I’m a Bogan hermit who’s a crackhead for Jesus 😂. St Titus has been teaching me to suffer honestly, but also with humor, and he is keeping me close to Jesus by reminding me to embrace my weakness and sufferings fully. 

This morning during the Office of Readings, this passage from Ezekiel and the commentary from St Augustine really hit me. My parish priest yesterday had a long chat to me and told me I have to stop pretending to be strong and in control and to allow God to heal me and let go. Then these two quotes really spoke to my heart as a verification of that. I’m a wounded stray sheep, and I can’t run away or hide, I have to call for help and trust in the Good Shepherd who loves me and searches after me, who will heal me and make me whole even in my brokenness. 

I hope this helps you in where ever you are at today in your life, may it bring you comfort and hope. We are all stray sheep, but we are loved and able to be healed if we trust. But we need to not run away or hide, together we can all help eachother stay close to our Beloved Shepherd and Guardian of our souls (1 Peter 2:25).

Marian Mysticism according to St Titus Brandsma

Mother Teresa and the mysticism of suffering

Mother Teresa was an ethnic Albanian nun born in modern day Macedonia. She is famous for her work with the poor in Calcutta India and founding a religious order - The Missionaries of Charity. They take a 4th vow to serve the “poorest of the poor”, and are spread throughout the world running orphanages, homeless shelters, women’s refuges or going into the streets to feed the homeless. 

What is lesser known about St Mother Teresa, is the intense inner suffering she struggled with for many years. She experienced the Dark Night of the Soul, where she did not feel any consolation or love of God within her, she often felt the absence of God. This intense suffering of hers was essential to her own mysticism of serving Jesus in the poor, and manifesting the love of God to others - even when she herself could not feel it. 

As a nun and a saint, her strength always came from prayer and the Eucharist. All her nuns have adoration twice a day, so that all their missionary charitable work flows from Jesus and back to Jesus. By spending time in Adoration in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament this teaches them the eyes of faith, so that they can also learn to see Jesus in every person they serve. This contemplative understanding of serving and loving Jesus in others, was a unique aspect of Mother Teresa’s spirituality. 

The Incarnational dimension of Mother Teresa’s spirituality, serving Jesus in the poorest of the poor, is founded upon the Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. God became man out of love for us, died on the cross for love of us - and remains in the Eucharist for love of us. This love of Jesus for us is not static or in the past, it is alive and dynamic. The love we receive from Jesus himself in the Eucharist is the same love we need to reflect and radiate to all around us, sharing with them the love that Jesus has for them. 

This intense love of Jesus is emphasised in the chapels of the Order, where they have the words written on the wall “I thirst” next to the crucifix. Mother Teresa taught that Jesus’ thirst on the cross was not for water, but for souls. He was thirsting for you and me, to love him as he loves us, and to help satiate his thirst by bringing others to him in love. 

Many of us would think that someone who so often preached the value of a smile, who spent years working with the poor, loving Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and a woman of intense prayer would have been bursting with the love of God inside her. Yet she only experienced darkness within herself. She felt empty and life she was in hell, with no love. 

Yet even with this suffering, she chose to remain faithful to the calling she felt God had given her. She still chose to get up and pray everyday, she chose to love God even when she felt she had no love, she chose to smile to others and help them feel loved - even when she didn’t feel she was. This intense suffering and desolation was part of her mysticism of suffering. She said that suffering itself was Jesus coming so close to you as to kiss you! 

So many of us confuse love with a feeling or emotion. But in Catholic theology, love is an action of the will - we choose to will the good of another, this is what it means to love.

When someone is mean or rude to you, but you still treat them kindly - this is charity. 

When someone doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, but you still choose to forgive them anyway - this is charity. 

When someone lies about you or persecuted you, but you still don’t retaliate and even try to help them when they need help - this is charity. 

When you feel dead on the inside and exist on darkness, but smile to all you meet and make them feel that they are precious - this is charity. 

Charity is love, but not romantic or erotic love. It is self sacrificing love, agape. As Mother Teresa used to say, love until it hurts - then love some more. For love to be real, it must hurt, it has to be sacrificial and therefore it is heroic. Charity makes us share in the love of Christ himself on the cross for us and in the Eucharist for us, so that we can learn how to love more tenderly. 

Only someone who truly loved Jesus could have done the things that Mother Teresa did for so many years. This was her mysticism of suffering - she was united to God precisely through the absence of feeling his love. But she still willed to love God anyway, she chose it. 

This is something I have found to be true on my own life - love is a choice. We have to choose to follow God and be kind to others even when we don’t feel like it. We have to choose to remain faithful to the Gospel even when it hurts or we feel overcome by our own weakness and inadequateness. We have to choose to shine the light of Christ to others, even when we ourselves feel we are in darkness. We have to choose to pray, even when we feel it is empty or a waste of time. 

Love is a choice, let us never forget this. Choose love today. Choose Jesus, because he has chosen you so that he can love others through you. 

Do you seek after spiritual honey or only see the dung?

This is advice from an Orthodox saint, but still highly relevant to us all, especially today. It can be so easy to focus on all the negatives in the Church and the world, while forgetting the good things. The more you understand this history of the Church you’ll see it’s always been a mess, always issues with corruption and scandal, there’s always been weak leaders and immorality, the saints were always the exception to the norm but not the norm. There’s never been a “golden period” of the Church without error, heresy, scandals, discord, corruption and failure - that’s the reality of sin in all of our lives, and yet even in all that overwhelming mess, the Jesus remains present as a ray of light and hope to us all, showing us the way to Him. 

Jesus is Lord and is in control, he is victorious (Colossians 2:15, Revelation 1:17) and has over come the world (John 16:33), we as members of the Church share in his victory (Romans 8:37) and he has left the Holy Spirit to guide the Church into all truth (John 16:13) as well as dwell in us as his own Temples (1 Corinthians 6:19) and poured his love into our hearts (Romans 5:5). 

So why should we be anxious or worried about things? Although we often feel like we are in a storm in our life, out of control and that we have been forgotten - but Jesus is present in the boat and in control (Mark 4:38-40). He also tells us today ““Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40). 

Today choose to see the goodness of the Lord in your life, don’t focus on the garbage. “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” (Psalm 34:8)