Northumbria Community:
The soul goes through many seasons, seasons of new life and promise, of full fruit, of loss and then of apparent deadness with hope for new life again. The secret is to appreciate the value of these changes and gain the benefits of each and not become too discouraged.
In Murray Bodo’s story of the life of Clare of Assisi, A Light in the Garden, some of these seasons of the soul are touched upon: The lives of Francis and Clare are themselves seasons of every soul, and it has something to do with Assisi in the spring becoming summer, surrendering to the gentle mists of fall, lying seemingly dead in winter, and waiting for the poppies of another spring …You choose your vocation in life over and over again. It is not a decision made once for all time when one is young.
As Clare grew in experience and in understanding of her commitment, she had to say yes again and again to a way of life that was not exactly the life she expected at the beginning.
Amy Carmichael writes:
The soul remembered how when she was a very little child she had sympathised with the grey sea. The blue sea was a happy sea. The green sea, when the waves thereof tossed themselves and roared, was a triumphant sea. But the grey sea looked anxious. So the child was sorry for the grey sea. Grey weather she abhorred. Something of this feeling was with her still. Grey weather was not among the things for which she gave thanks. Then God her Father said to her: All weathers nourish souls.
MEDITATION
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 that 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 that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road although I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I 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 will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Thomas Merton
God said, “Consider the gentle, loving Word born in a stable while Mary was on a journey. This baby is showing you pilgrims how you should constantly be born anew in the stable of self-knowledge. There by grace you’ll find Me born within your soul. “See baby Jesus lying between animals? And so poor, Mary had nothing to cover Him with, and it was winter. So Mary kept God’s Son warm with the breath of animals and a blanket of hay. “Now look again. This baby is the fire of Love, but He chose to endure the bitterest cold in His humanity. All the while My Son lived on earth, He chose to suffer.”
Catherine of Siena
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