Wondrously Made

Shun (sexual) immorality.  Every other sin a man commits is outside the body; but the (sexually) immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 

1 Corinthians 5:18-20

 

A View of the Temple Mount

Judy Lash Balint 

"Your Body Is a Temple"

I think we often hear this verse as a threat: Don’t smoke. Eat right and exercise and keep your clothes on--OR ELSE. But what if it’s a love letter? God spent hundreds of verses describing the exact specifications of his wondrous, immaculate Temple. Here He tells you that you're just as beautiful.

Dear heart, you are not an accident. There is no part of you that is not willed–deeply, desperately desired by the God of the universe. The greatest beauty in this world is nothing compared to you. From the beginning of time, He was preparing for you.

And when he made you, he made you right.

He planned every bit of you. Every atom in your being was accounted for. You think He spent a lot of time planning the Temple? That house of stone has nothing on you, His living home, His beloved. Your proportions are just what He wanted. Your color, your shape, your hair texture have purpose and meaning, as much as any column or pomegranate or basin in the Temple.

And the result, my friend, is ineffable beauty. You are His temple, stunning and lovely. Every bit of you is covered in glory, just as the inside of the Temple was covered in gold. You are so much more than the sum of your parts. Listed out on a page, taken piece by piece, it may be easy to overlook you, easy to skim over you. But all together, you are marvelous, a wonder, a sight to behold.

You might struggle to accept the fact that you’re lovely. But beware of clinging to your self-loathing, of choosing to believe God screwed up. That even though He tells you in Scripture that every bit of the Temple is perfect and planned, and you are His temple--He’s wrong.

Hating yourself is saying that God is wrong.

But you are not your own. You were made to order, then purchased at the price of the blood of Christ. You're His beloved. God doesn’t make junk. He didn’t plan out every square cubit of the Temple down to the last talent of bronze only to lament it wasn’t decorated well. He didn’t form you in your mother’s womb to sigh over your frizzy hair and cellulite and acne-ridden skin. He made you, just as you are, on purpose. He thinks you’re stunning.

Please stop telling Him he’s wrong.

from Meg Hunter-Kilmer

 

From "Creation: The Basics of What Orthodox Christians Believe"

For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are your works! You know me right well; my frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance, in your book were written, every one of them, the days were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.

Psalm 139:13-16

Zeal. Where Does It Come From?

 "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! 

- Luke 12:49

from "Sukkot Feast of the Tabernacles" (Dt 16:14-15)

The Saints Heroic

The stories of the saints capture our minds for many reasons, not the least of which is for their zealous love. Their zeal manifests throughout Church history: great bravery under trial and threat of death, heroic displays of devotion, persistent suffering for the glory of God, and undeterred action to build His Kingdom. When I was a child, my parents signed me up for a book series that would come in the mail each month. Every installment would contain colorful pictures and dramatic stories of great saints, both ancient and modern. What most captured my young imagination? The stories of great courage under duress, when a young woman stood her ground against unyielding familial and political opposition, when a young man carried the weight of his brothers in a fight that seemed to all the world would unwinnable. They didn't just speak of their love. They died for it. 

As I child, I was enthralled. But maybe, even then, I felt the first slivers of fear and doubt needle my mind: 

"These were surely courageous men and women and children. God called them for great things. How can I possibly follow in their footsteps when I am so small and weak, so sinful and inconstant?"

What the Desert Fathers Knew

 

St. Anthony the Great (from St. Anthony Monastery, Perth in Ontario, Canada)

As counterintuitive as it sounds, the source of zeal may, in fact, flow from steady, persistent, contemplative prayer: a sort of holy flame kindled in the silent, slow crucible of mysticism. 

To better understand this idea, I've turned to a category of saints different from the martyrs and "fighters" that remain etched so prominently in my mind from those children's books: the Desert Fathers. One example is St. Anthony of Egypt (251 - 356 AD). After listening to a homily on St. Mathew's gospel, he was moved to sell everything he had and donate his wealth to the poor. And this young man had a lot -- he recently inherited a lavish familial estate. He moved to the outskirts of his town to live a simple life of prayer in the African desert. How radical this was, even in those times! How hard it is for me to give up and clear away even the small things that crowd out the space God wishes to have for Himself, to give His Spirit the chance to speak to me, to guide me, to lead me. 

The Desert Fathers were on to something. Jesus himself left the world for a time to pray and fast in the desert before fulfilling his mission. Now, we may be physically distant from any truly arid, isolated locales. And maybe we don't have the survival skills to live in the wild eating "honey and insects" for 40 days. But God has a plan for you and me and a mission for us to fulfill. Out of His unending, patient, overflowing love, He may instead send us "deserts" at various points in our lives. The hunger or poverty or sickness or loss or isolation -- these are deserts. But they're not akin to Ironman Triathlons, endurance trials that somehow "prove" our love for God or simply "test" our faith. No. A desert sent by the most Holy One is a gift. And all of His gifts are good -- and ultimately for our greatest good. 

But Then, Face-to-Face

And what is the purpose, the goodwill behind God periodically dropping deserts into our lives? First, as the bare landscape and deprivation that dry, seemingly lifeless regions evoke, deserts are about repenting and pruning, stripping away as much as we can to give the Holy Spirit even more room to make His home in us, to give God even more opportunity to accomplish His will through our lives. We are but simple creatures who are yet still His hands and feet on this earth. 

But there's more. 

To see God's blessing in the desert we turn again to Mary, and specifically, that night when our Savior came forth from her womb and changed the very fabric of the Universe--permanently. 

The 3rd Joyful Mystery: The Nativity

". . . Who was born to thee, O Virgin."

It is the hour of the Holy Night. The divine child Jesus comes forth into the outer world, becomes our brother, and takes upon Himself the lot of the Redeemer . . . (A)nd the glorification of that joyous happening will never be muted on this earth.

At the same hour, something happened that concerned Mary alone: in her own personal being, in her spirit and heart, Christ moved into the open expanse of her perception and love; the attitude of expectation became a communion face-to-face. Unutterable truth -- she saw Him who was the manifestation of the living God! As her heart overflowed, a flaming flood rushed toward Him who came with the love of the Redeemer. Serving Him in His tender years, she served the Lord who had revealed Himself in human weakness.

This takes spiritually in every Christian as often as that inner life which divined by faith steps into the clarity of knowledge, into the distinctness of action, and into the decisiveness of testimony. In every one of us, Christ is born as often as He penetrates, as essence and standard, into any deed or happening. One day this happens with particular significance: namely, on that day when it dawns on us, clear and strong, who Christ is, so that He becomes the governing reality of our inner lives.  

Fr. Romano Guardini

The Rosary of Our Lady

 Zeal from Friendship

Like so much in the Christian faith, zeal doesn't necessarily come from striving to be something.  Zeal comes from trusting in the one person who knew and loved us from before the beginning of time. He placed a certain kind of desire in our hearts with the full knowledge that only He Himself can meet that desire--and satisfy it. Knowing Jesus gives us a type of peace beyond what the world could ever offer, beyond whatever I could achieve through heroic acts of self-discipline or even the repeated practice of meditation and detachment from the world. 

His love sets me free. Free to love in a way that imitates the reckless, patient love that defines God. He helps me remember that I'm fearfully made, that I share in the dignity of the life of God. I matter to Him. He proved it on the cross. Therefore, everything I do becomes infused with cosmic significance. In my thoughts and in my words, in what I do or fail to do -- I choose either to serve the Master and King of the Universe or I choose to serve myself. Only one of those two paths leads to life and life in abundance. 

Tabernacle, Main Chapel, Inn at St. John's (Plymouth, MI)

Read this passage from the end of the next chapter in Luke's Gospel (Jesus's "Lament over Jerusalem"), but in your mind imagine Jesus speaks his lament directly to you and not just the Jewish people:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!

Behold, your house will be abandoned. [But] I tell you, you will not see me until [the time comes when] you say, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."

Luke 13:34-35

 

 

Our Lady, Queen of the Rosary

 

Mary to the children at Fatima, Portugal, October 13, 1917:

“I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day.”

from Communal First Saturdays:

Power in Prayer Together 

The Seven Sorrows & The Reign

 

1. The Prophecy of Simeon
2. Flight into Egypt
3. Seeking Jesus Lost in Jerusalem
4. Meeting Jesus on the Way to Calvary
5. Standing Near the Foot of the Cross of Her Son
6. Receiving the Body of Jesus Taken Down from the Cross
7. Placing the Body of Jesus in the Tomb

In the end, the victory will always be on the side of the children of Mary, for she will crush his head, where his pride dwells. Satan will continue to lay his snares against her heel; that is, against Mary's humble and poor slaves, whom she will raise up to make war against him. These children of Mary will be poor in worldly esteem; they will be humbled and abased. Like the heel, they will be trodden underfoot and persecuted. But in return for all this, Mary shall make them rich in grace before God. They shall be superior to other creatures in sanctity and in zeal for God's cause, which is Mary's cause. With the humility of her heel, in union with Mary, they shall crush the proud head of the devil and make the cause of Jesus Christ to triumph over all. 

Sister Mary Amatora, O.S.F.

from The Queen's Way (or To Jesus Through Mary)

Chapter IV: The Queen's Reign

The House That Will Stand

 A House of Lies

14 Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem! 

15 Because you have said, "We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement; when the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge and in falsehood we have taken shelter." 

16 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: 'He who believes will not be in haste.' 17 And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter." 

18 Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through you will be beaten down by it. 19 As often as it passes through it will take you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be sheer terror to understand the message. 

20 For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on it, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in it. 21 For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim, he will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon; to do his deed--strange is his deed! and to work his work--alien is his work! 

22 Now, therefore, do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts upon the whole land.

Isaiah 28:14-22

A Song of Ascent

3“I will not enter the house where I live,a nor lie on the couch where I sleep;

4I will give my eyes no sleep, my eyelids no rest,

5Till I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”

6“We have heard of it in Ephrathah;* we have found it in the fields of Jaar.*

7Let us enter his dwelling; let us worship at his footstool.”b

8“Arise, LORD, come to your resting place,c you and your mighty ark."
Psalm 132: 3 -- 8


You must hope because God's goodness is immense.
-St. Pio of Pietrelcina

David's Songs of Ascent: A 5-Part Sequence

 Psalm 130 - A Prayer for Pardon and Mercy

Psalm 131 - In Quiet Stillness, A Humble Trust in God

Psalm 132 - A Covenant with God, To Live in His House

Psalm 133 - A Vision of Blessed Community

Psalm 134 - At Night, the Watchmen Remember God

Consecration Day - The Feast of the Assumption