The Mystery of the Incarnation
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Sunset marks the beginning of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Tonight, we
light *all* the candles! At the Easter Vigil, as the deacon enters the
Church carryi...
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
What I would have said at School of Community tonight if my car hadn't broken down and I had been able to go.
A lot has been going on for the past few weeks that's left me feeling trapped and overwhelmed. I was thinking and praying about the situation while I stood in my mechanic's waiting room, and at one point I said to God "I just want to be free!" Then I realized that I had fallen back into confusing freedom with getting my own way and that if freedom really means the ability to become who I was created to be then my circumstances are not really an issue. This realization awakened the hope that I'd stopped looking for when I got too busy feeling sorry for myself. My hope is this: that God is not working around my circumstances, He's working in them. None of this is really new to me, but apparently I need to keep repeating these lessons in order to actually learn them. Giussani said something about that in one of the Is It Possible To Live This Way? books, but I can't find the actual quote.
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4 comments:
Missed you there tonight Sara, but I certainly experienced just the same feelings you expressed last week. We had so many different things stressing us out it was very difficult. I truly believe it was our night prayers that brought us back to realizing our problems, though real and stressful, were just passing things, and that Jesus was always there with us, even if at that moment we didn't realize it.
We did miss you. However, what you experienced is a moment of true liberation. We have to refuse to be controlled by circumstances, this is freedom. Freedom is freedom for, not freedom from. As long as we live, we will find ourselves in circumstances! So, that is not the issue at all. We must refuse to be our own oppressors and live in the freedom of the children of God- this is what it means to live in the awareness of our destiny.
Here is something Fr. Carron said:
"The Encounter Is a Fact
"Certainty, what is certainty? It is the recognition of the real, physical bond with Christ, companionship within life’s circumstances, even to the point of extreme drama. So, what is Christian experience? Why do we insist so much on the term experience? Why are we not afraid to use this term? Why do we make it the fundamental point of knowledge and action? Because experience describes precisely the objective dynamic of the event. What happens in the encounter? The encounter is a fact...." ( http://www.traces-cl.com/feb05/thestrength.html )
And here is Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, at the Meeting in Rimini:
"We have to answer the mystery of God in the vocation of our lives, to respond constantly to the love that calls us. How can I serve the mystery or to say yes to God? We have the opportunity to remain forever young by saying yes to Christ, which is always yes to real persons and precise circumstances. These are much more than they appear as we become familiar with Christ and become certain of what is good even for those who are apparently against us. This is the ability to recognize Christ under the appearance of what is happening. We will judge persons and things in a different way. This is even to say yes to God when you’re stuck in traffic. We become more interested in finding Christ in circumstances rather than changing circumstances. This is what makes flowers grow in the most arid desert daily [...] Daily life is filled with arid things that are not passionate, even for a bishop, e.g. administration, bureaucracy. One can feel something like being stuck in traffic. Time elapses and it doesn’t change things. Instead, protagonism is offering, saying I offer this to you, Christ. You are the consistency of things. I don’t decide the circumstances. No matter what level you find yourself, you can always offer in any circumstance." ( http://veniteavedere.blogspot.com/2008/08/from-clairity-daily.html )
This is from "At the Origin of the Christian Claim":
It is truly a dizzying condition to have to adhere to something whose presence I sense but cannot see, measure, or possess...And although devoid of the possibility of measuring and possessing that unknown, the reasonable man is still called to action, primarily to take account of his condition and, secondly, to adhere realistically, circumstance after circumstance, to existence as it presents itself. At the same time he is unable to see the all-supporting framework, the design through which the meaning takes shape...Man feels like he is traveling toward the unknown, adhering to every determinant and every step according to circumstances that present themselves as unavoidable solicitations; since he recognizes them as such, he should say a forceful "yes" with all the resources of his heart and mind, without "understanding." This is an absolutely precarious, dizzying condition. (page 7)
Here is an amazing and miraculous example of this attitude "in action":
http://veniteavedere.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-on-openness.html
But I'm still looking in Is It Possible for the quote you mean!
Peace!
Cielini? Me too. I go tot SoC in Cranford, N.J.
www.catholicmusings.blogspot.com
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