Are you confident I can do this?
Matthew 9:28
The least we can do is to give the true doctor, who dwells in each patient, a chance to be operative.
Carl Jung
Deep inside each organism is something that knows what that organism’s true nature and life goal is. It is as though there is within each person an inner centre that knows what constitutes health. If our conscious personality becomes related to this inner centre, the whole person may begin to emerge, though this may not bring either peace or social adaptation, but conflict and stress…..The movement towards social adaptation may look more like crucifixion than adaptation or peace of mind.
John Sandford
Image: Cross in the Blizzard, Jozef Chelmonski, 1907
We must never fail to trust in the love of God, to have confidence that he wants our good. We must be convinced that He wants us, and wants us badly, if I may put it that way.
Basil Hume
Some of us believe that God is all-powerful and can do everything, and that God is all-wisdom and may do everything, but that God is all-loving and wishes to do everything, there we fail: and such ignorance hinders God’s lovers, as I see it.
Julian of Norwich
Find a solitary, quiet place. Rest. Relax.
Be patient- let what comes to the surface come – simply identify concerns –
anxiety over illness – guilt or shame arising from past memories – broken relationships –
larger concerns of natural disasters, war, pandemics….
After a while listen to Julian’s words: “God is all-loving and wishes to do everything” and hear them, feel their energy.
Whatever you may be feeling – possibly hopelessness or helplessness –
give room to these words – and grow in the sense of God’s desire and longing to do everything good in every situation.
When we pray for others, and for ourselves, it is vital that we remember that God is both immediately and intimately present to every one of us. So our imagination is a powerful gift to us in all this, acting as a bridge between the Great Story and our story – putting us in touch with “the magnificent scale on which [God] is acting at the present moment”. God is good and wants our good. The Great Story of Jesus that we read in the Gospels is not simply a story about back then: it points towards a very present reality, and offers us a real encounter with the real and living God.
The image in this post are of paintings by the Polish artist Jozef Chelmonski.
Józef Marian Chełmoński (November 7, 1849 – April 6, 1914) was a Polish painter of the realist school with roots in the historical and social context of the late Romantic period in partitioned Poland. He is famous for monumental paintings now at the Sukiennice National Art Gallery in Kraków and at the MNW in Warsaw.
Chełmoński was born in the village of Boczki near Łowicz in central Congress Poland under the Russian military control. His first drawing teacher was his father (a small leaseholder and administrator of Boczki village). After travelling in Austria and Italy, in 1887 he returned to Poland and in 1889 settled in the village of Kuklówka Zarzeczna. Contact with his homeland and nature are qualities revealed in his artworks. From that time are the best liked, the most beloved of Chełmoński’s paintings.
and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past
the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
The Song of Solomon 2:10 – 12
For a printable PDF of the text of this meditation please click the link below.
