Father Norm's Notebook: February 2023

Thursday, February 23, 2023

A Lenten Insight from Pope Francis:

There's something attractive about Lent beginning in the middle of an ordinary week, catching us in the middle of our daily occupations and asking us to take time out to find God there.

Lent doesn't take us away from our ordinary lives, but rather it invites us to bring a new and holy attention to those activities. This should be the way with all our spiritual practices.

We take time apart in order to return to our daily practices with new inspiration. God will always surprise us with possibilities when we least expect them. Let this Lent be one of those surprises.

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Dorothy Day/Peter Maurin

"One time I was traveling and far from home and lonely, and I woke in the night almost on the verge of weeping with a sense of futility, of being unloved and unwanted. And suddenly the thought came to me of my importance as a daughter of God, daughter of a king, and I felt a sureness in God's love and at the same time a conviction that one of the greatest injustices, if one can put it that way, which one can do to God is to distrust his love, not realize his love. "God so loved me that he gave his only begotten son. 'If a mother will forget her children, never will I forget thee.' Such tenderness. And with such complete ingratitude we forget the father and his love!"

The Battlefield at Gettysburg

For me the battlefield at Gettysburg is holy ground. After the war, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who served as colonel of the 20th Maine regiment during the battle, returned to that field and experienced all around him a mighty presence. Chamberlain was convinced that "on great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger --to consecrate ground as the vision place of souls." He was sure that "reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream. And lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls." I count myself among those reverent men. I ponder and I dream. And sometimes I am overcome by the shadow of a mighty presence. For this reason, I think of a visit to Gettysburg as a pilgrimage, and I prefer to call that deathless field "the Holy Land."

Let us pray.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen. (Thomas Merton)

Thursday, February 23, 2023

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Dorothy Day/Peter Maurin

The Battlefield at Gettysburg

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