Pieces of Lent
By Melodious Monk
This year, Jesus again walks with us on our Lenten journey. As we go, I want to try and find new delights of God that I can gather together and take into springtime, with the hopes of understanding a few more aspects of the love of God. Here are a few nuggets I picked up this week from French writer Leon Bloy.
Freedom is nothing but this: the respect God has for us…
If [God] desires to have us, he must seduce us, for if his Majesty does not please us, we can throw it from our presence, buffet it, scourge it, and crucify it to the applause of the vilest rabble. God will not defend himself with power, but only with his patience and his beauty….
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Rev. 3:20)
Suffering! Here then is the key word! Here the solution for every human life on earth! The springboard for every superiority, the sieve for every merit, the infallible criterion for every moral beauty! People absolutely refuse to understand that suffering is needful…Suffering is necessary. It is the backbone, the very essence of moral life. Love is recognized by this sign, and when this sign is lacking, love is but a prostitution of strength or of beauty. I say that someone loves me when that someone consents to suffer through or for me…
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)
There is but one sorrow, and that is to have lost the Garden of Delights, and there is but one hope and one desire, to recover it.
