We Act in Faith

We act in faith - and miracles occur. In consequence, we are tempted to make the miracles the ground of our faith. The cost of such weakness is that we lose the confidence of faith. Faith is, faith creates, faith carries. It is not derived from, nor created, nor carried by anything except its own reality.

                                                                                   --Dag Hammarskjöld, Vägmärken

This is a great paradox. People who make miracles the basis for their faith run the risk of encountering all sorts of skepticism, doubt, and even theological problems. Faith can’t be about miracles, because it springs from a higher certainly. Miracles are gifts, but the greatest gift is faith. I have, myself, witnessed probable miracles on a few occasions, given the definition that a miracle is an event that entails divine intervention in the suspension of natural physical law. But what is that compared to faith; to the relationship with God from which true faith is derived? What does faith need but the love of the Other, the person that one has faith in?

     St. Alonzo Rodriguez (in his Autobiography) said of his own supernatural experiences: “So great is my aversion to such things that I would prefer not to speak or write about them and that no one should know of them. For they bring more danger than profit and the world esteems them highly, though there is little light in them, when it should make much of solid virtues. Sanctity consists in the love of God and of one’s neighbor, and in profound humility, patience, obedience, and resignation, and the Imitation of Christ our Lord.”

     In his Das Allgemeine Brouillon (a title which I borrowed when I give this space a name), Novalis said, “All faith is wondrous and wonder-working.”

December 12, 2025

 

Nach dir, Maria, heben

Schon tausend Herzen sich.

In diesem Schattenleben

Verlangten sie nur dich.

Sie hoffen zu genesen

Mit ahndungsvoller Lust –

Drückst du sie, heil'ges Wesen,

An deine treue Brust.

 

Following you, Mary,

A thousand hearts are eagerly arising.

In this shadowy life,

They long only for you

And hope to be healed

With a sense of joyful expectation—

If you, holy one,

Will press them to your faithful breast.

 

                     —Novalis, Hymnen an die Nacht

December 12, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe

 

Las ondas del mar, la tierra entera,

todo pueblo y nación era mi dominio.

Entre todas estas cosas buscaba reposo,

una heredad en que instalarme.

                        --Eclesiástico 24: 6-7

Over waves of the sea, over all the land,

over every people and nation, I held sway.

Among all these I sought a resting place.

In whose inheritance should I abide?

                --Sirach 24:6-7

Idolatry

The worst form of idolatry must be the desire to make God in our own image. Or even worse, in the image of someone as troubled and deluded as Donald Trump. That temptation to see God as vengeful, cruel, exclusive, and indifferent, infects us and causes us to lose our humanity, our status as children of God. But the God that Jesus reveals is the opposite; He is the healer of our humanity: all-merciful, unconditionally loving, the friend of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, the sinner. A God who abolishes fear, slavery, hatred, and arrogance—who is truly the way, the truth, and the life.

"I acknowledge my transgressions"

 

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt

“I acknowledge my transgression,” says David. If I admit my fault, then you will pardon it. Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon. But people are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others. They seek to criticize, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others. This was not the way that David showed us how to pray and make amends to God, when he said: “I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me.” He did not concentrate on others’ sins; he turned his thoughts on himself. He did not merely stroke the surface, but he plunged inside and went deep down within himself. He did not spare himself, and therefore was not impudent in asking to be spared.

                                                                                             --from a sermon by St. Augustine

Grace

 

When the indivisible Trinity willed eternally and undividedly the existence of beings able to receive God, to have part in his delight, gladness, peace, joy, then the Trinity created from nothing the rational mind made in God’s image. The very fact of creation from nothing, the truth of—as I’ve already mentioned—God’s perfectly gratuitous generosity makes nonsense of the notion that some have had of a certain compulsion inherent in his nature that could not be put to rest. Creation certainly is an effect of his natural goodness, but only because he wills it. Blessed, no less, the Being that demands doing good. Does not he who is compelled to do the good deeds demanded by the goodness of his own nature do them gratuitously and freely?

                                                                               --Blessed Isaac of Stella, 8^th Sermon for Sexagesima

 

By recognizing the gratuitousness of our coming into existence, we can we understand the fullness of God’s creative love. By knowing that our existence is a totally free and gratuitous act of God, we can begin to appreciate that we are complete only in God; that we are destined only for God; that we need nothing but God.

Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe

 

I recently went through a situation where I was trying to correct a mistake I had made that threatened to seriously impact the life and health of an innocent third person. Making it right involved dealing with several bureaucratic nightmares, and I experienced an enormous amount of frustration and anxiety. I felt that I had to fix the situation by hook or by crook—I had, after all, caused it by my carelessness—and it meant plenty of complaining on my part, a shortage of kindness and patience, and a basic neglect of trust in God.

     As I reflected today on a particular incident in that beautiful account of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Nican Mopohua, I was reminded of this moral lapse on my part, basically the result of a lack of faith. I thought about Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, who received the visions of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and who, after failing twice to convince the bishop of Mexico of the reality of his visions, was to meet with her and receive a sign from her that the bishop had requested as proof of the genuineness of Juan’s visions. In the story, Juan’s uncle falls ill before this all-important meeting, and believing that his uncle is dying, Juan sets out to a nearby town to fetch a priest who can give his uncle the Last Rites. He doesn’t want to be delayed, so he deliberately attempts to avoid running into the Virgin by traveling on the opposite side of the hill where he was supposed to meet her. Rather than simply going to her, as he had already promised, and asking for her help, he thinks that he should handle the situation with his uncle by himself, depending on his own efforts. Of course, the Virgin Mary meets him on the detour, and she gently reproves him, assuring him in a most loving way that she is his Mother, and he is always under her care and protection. She tells him that his uncle is cured of his illness, and she gives him the sign to take to the bishop, which proves to be greater than anything he or the bishop expected. Although Juan thought he was doing the right thing by trying to hurry and obtain a priest before his uncle died, it led him to neglect the person who could most help his uncle. But the Virgin Mary comes to his and his uncle’s aid despite his lack of faith in her, as her love is greater than Juan’s folly. I, too, in times of trouble, need to remember that Mary’s intercession is more powerful than anything I can do on my own. That is not to say that I was wrong in trying to fix the situation I had created, but if I had just trusted and had faith and acted in a more considerate and patient manner through it all, the positive results (which were, like everything I have ever received in other seemingly hopeless situations, a clear gift of God) would have been achieved with greater peace in my heart and without so much regrettable behavior.

     Because God loves us, he gives us his mother to protect and care for us, and all we need to do is to trust in that love in all our trials and tribulations.

“The Holiest Words Went With the Most Hating Blow”

The moon at length approached the forest, and came slowly into it: with her first gleam the noises increased to a deafening uproar, and I began to see dim shapes about me. As she ascended and grew brighter, the noises became yet louder, and the shapes clearer. A furious battle was raging around me. Wild cries and roars of rage, shock of onset, struggle prolonged, all mingled with words articulate, surged in my ears. Curses and credos, snarls and sneers, laughter and mockery, sacred names and howls of hate, came huddling in chaotic interpenetration. Skeletons and phantoms fought in maddest confusion. Swords swept through the phantoms: they only shivered. Maces crashed on the skeletons, shattering them hideously: not one fell or ceased to fight, so long as a single joint held two bones together. Bones of men and horses lay scattered and heaped; grinding and crunching them under foot fought the skeletons. Everywhere charged the bone-gaunt white steeds; everywhere on foot or on wind-blown misty battle-horses, raged and ravened and raved the indestructible spectres; weapons and hoofs clashed and crushed; while skeleton jaws and phantom-throats swelled the deafening tumult with the war-cry of every opinion, bad or good, that had bred strife, injustice, cruelty in any world. The holiest words went with the most hating blow. Lie-distorted truths flew hurtling in the wind of javelins and bones. Every moment some one would turn against his comrades, and fight more wildly than before, THE TRUTH! THE TRUTH! still his cry.

                                                                                  --George MacDonald, Lilith

 

 Like the skeletons and phantoms of the Evil Wood that battle night after night in George MacDonald’s novel, Lilith, so many people find a way to distort Jesus’ message of universal love and peace into a message of hate and violence. And the same is often true of the messages of other prophets and religious leaders. Indeed, religion, philosophy, political ideals, and national pride have been used continually to promote animosity and prejudice toward others. "The holiest words . . . with the most hating blow." But what does Jesus actually say: “Love one another.” (John 13:34)

Poem

I have a poem in Amethyst Review, the second one that has appeared there recently. Although I don’t usually comment on what I have written, I do sometimes like to provide a little background. This poem is inspired by my love of bees, but its symbolism also comes from the words found in the second advent sermon of St. Bernard of Clairvaux concerning Jesus: “Our bee feeds among lilies, and dwells in the flowery country of the angels. This bee flew down to the city of Nazareth, the meaning of which may be interpreted as ‘a blossom;’ He came to the sweet-smelling flower of perpetual virginity; He settled upon it, remained with it.” I was also thinking of St. Ambrose of Milan, who compared the beehive to the church and the bee to the individual Christian, because of the bees’ reputation for diligence, vigilance, modesty, zeal, and dedication to the hive. Interestingly, the beehive is a symbol of both St. Bernard and St. Ambrose, as their eloquence was compared to the sweetness of honey.

Creation

 

Let everything in creation draw you to God. Refresh your mind with some innocent recreation and needful rest, if it were only to saunter through the garden or the fields, listening to the sermon preached by the flowers, the trees, the meadows, the sun, the sky, and the whole universe. You will find that they exhort you to love and praise God; that they excite you to extol the greatness of the Sovereign Architect Who has given them their being.

                                                                                                        --St. Paul of the Cross

 

Nature is truly a great refuge and temple. But nature also makes me inarticulate (which is not necessarily a bad thing, considering my tendency to babble on in both speech and writing). How to capture with words the moment when the crab apple trees become covered in frothy pink and red blossoms, or that hour when the distant mountains turn sharp as etchings and are silhouetted in silver-blue, or the short span of time when the naked desert adopts every shade of luxuriant green after heavy summer rains. What value or truth can anything that I say (or write) have for myself or anyone else, especially when compared with the wholeness and balance that nature displays as a continuous reminder of the “original source of beauty” (Wisdom 13:3) who fashioned it?

Unless your righteousness . . .

I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

                                                                                               --Matthew 5:20

 

How to surpass the scribes and Pharisees in virtue? To begin with, by always being humble, by remembering our own faults and failings and our need for forgiveness, by knowing that anything worthwhile in us is a gift of God, and by seeing all others as better than ourselves in every way.

Día de la Virgen de Guadalupe, 2022

 

Sí, ustedes saldrán gozosamente

y serán conducidos en paz;

al paso de ustedes, las montañas y las colinas prorrumpirán en gritos de alegría,

y aplaudirán todos los árboles del campo.

En lugar de zarzas brotarán cipreses,

y mirtos en lugar de ortigas:

esto dará al Señor un gran renombre,

será una señal eterna, que no se borrará.

                              -- Isaías 55:12-13

  

Yes, in joy you shall go forth,

in peace you shall be brought home;

mountains and hills shall break out in song before you,

all trees of the field shall clap their hands.

In place of the thornbush, the cypress shall grow,

instead of nettles, the myrtle.

This shall be to the Lord’s renown,

as an everlasting sign that shall not fail.  

                            --Isaiah 55:12-13

In Time and Eternity

 

From the gospel of the most sublime of the evangelists: “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” These are words for both time and eternity, and embody a life, developing and unfolding, that exists, even with all our troubles and failings, in joy. I would be blind or a liar to deny my experience of this life, because to “know” God, to “know” Jesus, means to be filled with love. And more than that, it means experiencing eternity even within the confines of time.

In his book The World’s Living Religions, the philosopher Archie Bahm (who was a friend of my father) wrote, “Jesus’ message was simple, practical, workable for those willing to give it a fair trial, and unsurpassed in profundity of insight into human nature and its problems of how to overcome unhappiness. Yet, since desire, greed, pride, and fear tend to dominate, and often succeed in dominating, human nature, we often remain blind to the nature and power of love.”

I certainly know desire, greed, pride, and fear, but I also know the power of love. When, in Jesus, God takes on our nature and joins time with eternity, love of neighbor and love of God also become joined as never before, giving us, to quote the evangelist again, the “power to become children of God,” both in this life and eternal life.

Feast of St. Hildegard of Bingen

The hosts of angels praise the good works of humanity and, because of those works, not for one hour, nor for one moment, do they cease from their praise; it sounds forth unceasingly. Now God wants the praise of the angels so that their glory will increase. To him this is pleasing, and in their praise, he wants the angels to make clear and manifest the works of the saints, for the human race is made in the image and likeness of God, and so he wants the angels to praise the works of men and women in his presence. But because the human race is supported by the help of God alone, in the same way also God wishes to be praised by humans and angels together so that their glory may be magnified.

                                                                                                  --St. Hildegard of Bingen

A quote from Georges Bernanos

 A nous entendre on croirait trop souvent que nous prêchons le Dieu des spiritualistes, l’Être suprême, je ne sais quoi, rien qui ressemble, en tout cas, à ce Seigneur que nous avons appris à connaître comme un merveilleux ami vivant, qui souffre de nos peines, s’émeut de nos joies, partagera notre agonie, nous recevra dans ses bras, sur son cœur.

To hear us, one would too often think that we are preaching the God of the spiritualists, the supreme Being, I don't know what, nothing resembling, in any case, this Lord whom we have come to know as a marvelous and living friend, who suffers our sorrows, is moved by our joys, will share our agony, and finally, receive us into his arms, on his heart.

                                                                                   --Georges Bernanos, Journal d'un curé de campagne

St. Francis of Paola

 

Put aside your hatred and animosity. Take pains to refrain from sharp words. If they escape your lips, do not be ashamed to let your lips produce the remedy, since they have caused the wounds. Pardon one another so that later on you will not remember the injury. The recollection of an injury is itself wrong. It adds to our anger, nurtures our sin, and hates what is good. It is a rusty arrow and poison for the soul. It puts all virtue to flight. It is like a worm in the mind: it confuses our speech and tears to shreds our petitions to God. It is foreign to charity: it remains planted in the soul like a nail. It is wickedness that never sleeps, sin that never fails. It is indeed a daily death.

                                                                                                --St. Francis of Paola

Today is the feast day of St. Francis of Paola, a Franciscan hermit of the fifteenth century.  He founded a community of hermit mendicants that eventually became the Minimi (the least ones).  And, in addition to establishing rules for friars and nuns, he created a “third order” for lay people.  Though he was a hermit, he was eventually drawn into a more active life, preaching and ministering to people of all social classes, defending the poor and oppressed, and making peace between kingdoms.  He was renowned for his humility and the austerity of his life, as well as his kindness and charity, which extended even to animals.  There are tales of his performing miracles on behalf of his animal friends, including a fish!  He was a strict vegan, as were all his fellow hermits.  They kept a year-round Lenten fast, abstaining not only from meat but all animal products including milk, eggs, and cheese.  Despite this, and the extreme austerity of his life (or perhaps because of it), he lived to be ninety-one-years-old.

The Snails

 Einst gingen zwei Jünglinge spazieren und fanden im Fahrweg einige Schnecken, die sie, besorgt, daß sie von einem Fuhrwagen zerdrückt werden möchten, in den Busch dabei warfen. »Ihr Mutwilligen«, riefen die Schnecken, »warum stört ihr uns aus unsrer friedlichen Ruhe und werft uns so mutwillig hierher.«

     Menschenbrüder, mit wem hadert ihr, wenn euch ein kleines Ungemach geschieht? Mit einem Allweisen? O! ihr Kurzsichtigen!

 

On one occasion, two youths went for a walk and found some snails on the roadway, which they threw into the bush, afraid they might be crushed by a wagon. "You mischievous ones," cried the snails, "why are you disturbing our peace and wantonly throwing us about?"

     Brothers and sisters, with whom do you quarrel when a little trouble befalls you? With an All-Wise? Oh, you short-sighted ones!

                                                                                    --Novalis, “Die Schnecken”

 

Because we are truly children of God, we want to understand all things.  But because we are obstinate children, we are not willing to be taught.  To perceive is to know how little we know.  Instead of waiting for the story to unfold, we demand the climax on the first page.  And when the train is traveling to strange and harsh and mysterious lands, we insist on getting off at the nearest stop.

 

Our Lady of Guadalupe 2021

Listen to me, my faithful children: open up your petals,

like roses planted near running waters;

Send up the sweet odor of incense,

break forth in blossoms like the lily.

Raise your voices in a chorus of praise;

bless the Lord for all his works!

Proclaim the greatness of his name,

loudly sing his praises,

With music on the harp and all stringed instruments;

sing out with joy as you proclaim:

The works of God are all of them good;

he supplies for every need in its own time.

                                  --Sirach 39:13-16

 

Feast of St. Cecilia

Take the case of people singing while harvesting in the fields or in the vineyards or when any other strenuous work is in progress. Although they begin by giving expression to their happiness in sung words, yet shortly there is a change. As if so happy that words can no longer express what they feel, they discard the restricting syllables. They burst out into a simple sound of joy, of jubilation. Such a cry of joy is a sound signifying that the heart is bringing to birth what it cannot utter in words.

      Now, who is more worthy of such a cry of jubilation than God himself, whom all words fail to describe? If words will not serve, and yet you must not remain silent, what else can you do but cry out for joy? Your heart must rejoice beyond words, soaring into an immensity of gladness, unrestrained by syllabic bonds. Sing to him with jubilation.

                                                                    --St. Augustine, A Commentary on Psalm 32

Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 2021

 

To most indigenous thinking people, the United States is not a melting pot; it is a boiling mess. No longer do we have the clear blue skies, but acid rain, maybe soon cyanide and nuclear rain, destroying life on land and water. No longer clear cool waters, but outrageous pollution destroying all forms of water life--believe it or not folks, if we cannot drink our once clear blue waters, we are the next to go!

                                                             --Carrie and Mary Dann, Right Livelihood Award acceptance speech