Did You Read Magnificat Yesterday?

Last updated on: February 4, 2012 at 11:11 am by Kathryn Jean Lopez

Did You Read Magnificat Yesterday? 2012-02-04T11:11:45-05:00 Kathryn Jean Lopez

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I’ve been known to ask that question occasionally. Sometimes the meditations there … well, they knock them out of the park … (to continue to use a way overused phrase) there.

Can it be a coincidence that I find myself in a corner of the world where it would be only natural to share such a thing?

The author, Elisabeth Leseur, married laywoman who died in 1914, and has a cause for canonization open.

And a word that jumps out at one who spends a lot of time around machines with clicks and words (creating more links and words!!!) is distraction …

How John the Baptist Lived and Died

O light, beauty, total love, O my God, when will we love you, you alone, letting go of all that distracts us from this pure union with you, seeing only one thing: the soul that you have given us and you, O my God, who live in it and should be the sole guide and judge of our actions and lives?

Let us try to protect ourselves from the useless stimulation [!!!!] that so often disturbs our lives. May those who are ever more serene and filled with God be sanctuaries open to every troubled conscience and every weak will …

This burning need for justice, this loving flame within us, this deep love for suffering and groaning humanity, all this is and can only be an unconscious turning toward this infinite love and infinite justice, toward the ultimate goodness that is God.

We must give ourselves; that is, we must bring forth from this interior sanctuary where we keep the best of ourselves some thoughts, chosen from among the best and most noble, that, once we have shared them, we become acts of love and words of life. We must firmly desire to try to give our best, to do all the good we can. The unknown reservoir of strength, energy, and nobility lying within our depths must become the property of our brothers and sisters through courageous effort and at generous surrender of our inmost selves.

Let us despise nothing: not any person, for in the worst of them there is the divine spark, which can always flame forth; nor ideas, for in all of them there is a grain of truth, which one must know how to discover; nor other people’s actions, for we often are unaware of their motives and always unaware of their far-reaching and providential consequences.

Magnificat will forgive me for reprinting that here if I urge you to subscribe for yourself or someone with that divine spark. It really is a treasure trove. (And if you are on Twitter, Mag is, too.) And Mag doesn’t require a tremendous daily commitment, frankly. Just enough. To focus the mind and heart and bring that deepest interior best to the surface in the most loving way. (It does not require much space either. If you do not want to be carrying the little monthly missal book around, they are all appy … for whatever digital equipment you carry around. Not a bad click to have in the daily arsenal.)

Imagine if we all prayed like Mrs. Leseur like that daily … ! Right now’s a start.

I love that the Internet is far from all “useless stimulation”! We just have to bookmark the right spots!

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