Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Anchoress

Home
Catholic
"His love is so strong…"

"His love is so strong…"

Last updated on: March 12, 2017 at 5:24 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

"His love is so strong…" 2017-03-12T17:24:40+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In the comments section here, Joseph Marshall says I am being prodded to write about my experiences on retreat.

I suspect that is correct, but I don’t think it’s time yet. I’ll know when it’s time because I’ll be writing it, unable to resist. For now, I am still processing it all.

I’m having difficulty articulating it because the Love -it was blinding, mesmerizing, all-encompassing, warm, delightful- I still don’t have the words. Last night I wrote to my Li’l Bro Thom, “I still have a long way to go before I can articulate what I learned there, in the amazing, tender presence of Him.

Him. It was while I was on retreat, prostrate before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, awash in that otherworldly Presence (privileged to have such access 24 hours a day) that I very naturally began to refer to Him as “His Majesty.” Teresa of Avila always used the phrase and I always wondered about it. Now, suddenly, I knew. I had had a glimpse of what it was to be in the Presence of the Eternal Majesty, and it took away all of my resistance, all of my words. I surrendered, gave it all, understood the illusion that I had anything to give, and the paradox therein; that God never takes away a gift given, but accepts the surrender of everything by gifting even more.

It was because of what I learned (all of which I still do not know) on retreat that I was compelled to make this defense of the Holy Eucharist, and even I was surprised at my language, my conviction and my use of the phrase, “His Majesty.” I was surprised, but I also understood; I can call him nothing less and it is still a wholly inadequate descriptor.

I am currently reading a book on Catherine of Siena, which I have been asked to review, and also reading the Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. Teresa writes about the life of prayer and the gifts His Majesty wishes to bestow, and remarks that some -by the mercies and pleasure of the Lord alone- manage to learn in an hour what take others a lifetime. In her downright way, she makes a rueful acceptance of the fact that some of those she taught and counseled understood in weeks what she did not know after 20 years of prayer, and then Teresa helplessly, adoringly, praises God for doing His own will.

I remembered Teresa’s observation when I read this story of filmwriter Joe Eszterhas’ dramatic conversion experience:

With serious habits of smoking (since age 12) and drinking (since age 14) plaguing him after a diagnosis of throat cancer in 2001, Eszterhas felt impending doom. Last year he recounted in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” site about collapsing on the side of a street. “I cried and begged God to help me,” he wrote, “. . . and He did. I hadn’t prayed since I was a boy. I had made fun of God and those who loved God in my writings. And now, through my sobs, I heard myself asking God to help me . . . and from the moment I asked, He did.”

He reported his throat doctor told him seven years after the surgery that I am “cured…..That my throat tissue has regenerated so remarkably that even a doctor examining my throat wouldn’t be able to tell that there was ever cancer there.” The doctor, who had removed about eighty percent of the writer’s larynx, called this “a miracle.”

Eszterhas asked: “Why did God save the life of man who had trashed, lampooned, and marginalized Him most of his life? Why did He take the time and the trouble to save me?” It sure wasn’t on account of his professional body of work. Quite the opposite. “His love is so strong that it was even able to open my rusty old closed heart.”

“His love is so strong…” It makes all things new. It creates and recreates, it permeates, it builds and renews.

His love is so strong that it breaks through all of our barriers – the physical ones (how many women do you know who have gotten pregnant even while using birth control?) and the spiritual ones, and even the intellectual ones. Those intellectual barriers may well be the most fortified and resolute because they are mortared with pride (which is the Evil’s handiest tool) and then fed on hurt and fear (Evil’s fruitful gardens).

“His love is so strong…” I read it and my eyes grow moist. Yes. I know it. His love radiated down from what my human eyes perceived to be a piece of bread, what my heart and spirit knew to be so much more, and for a brief time it bathed me in the warmest, most caressing Light, and everything became different. Nothing is what it was. In the Light, the shadows and illusions fall away and you stand in the only Reality, the Completeness, the All-in-All. There is nothing else.

Oh, God, what I have seen, and still I am so wretchedly connected to this world, this earth, this thing, this me – still so entwined in my faults which are like clinging vines, ever dragging me down and back to where I would rather not be. I cannot even begin to write it; I haven’t the words, myself, so you will have to help me because I am helpless.

Not yet. I can’t write it yet; still processing. Still needing prayer and prayer, and prayer.

The other day, I got an email from a Catholic cleric who had just been dealt a humiliation by a very thoughtless pastor. In his angry, frustrated state, he went to the church, where he had the immense privilege of officiating at Benediction -that means that at the end of the Expostion of the Blessed Sacrament, he donned the humeral veil (explained beautifully here) and raised the monstrance containing the Host -where Christ is Present, under the appearance of bread- and then made the Sign of the Cross over the congregation. He assisted Christ in making this powerful blessing. How does one assist in the blessing of the faithful; hold Him in ones hands and not feel inclined to bash all anger, all fear, all frustration, temptation, hopelessness, upon the cross of Christ -which can bear all things- and simply consent; simply allow Him to recreate, revive, restore to make everything, everything, new.

His Majesty will do it; He will not wait to discuss all the ways you have failed Him -there is time for that, an Eternity for that, later. If you allow Him to, if you let Him in, he will change you, and bathe you in his immense tenderness. If you are laying in a gutter, like Eszterhas, you can call on Him, trusting in the words of Isaiah 38:17: “…you have saved me from the pit of destruction, when you cast behind your back, all of my sins.”

Yes, it is a mystery. It is beyond all of our knowing, which is why -no matter how tempted we are to lay with the Pharisees- we ultimately cannot. We must, ultimately err on the side of mercy, because mercy is what we all seek, and leave Justice to the One who may be trusted to know what that is.

I hate my humanness which keeps me so earth-bound, so hide-bound to my stubborn judgments, my weaknesses, my sins. I love my humanness, because it forces me to trust His Majesty, and all of his ways, which are all-Good. I will stumble. Every day I will stumble. Every day I will need forgiveness. Every day, I will understand my need to surrender because I am so helpless, so useless. Every day I will need pardon. Every day, will be the same day, as He is the same, even though everything is different. Especially because everything is different.

“His love is so strong…”

As evidenced by all of this blather, I have nothing to add to those 5 words.

Related:
The Integrity of the New Testament
Patrick O’ Hannigan on what Catholics get right and wrong
Flowers before His Majesty

Culture of Life/Death

Previous Post

September 7, 2009

Happy Labor Day!

Next Post

September 8, 2009 You really can get anything at Amazon!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How many times did Elijah stretch over dead child?

Select your answer to see how you score.

3 5 4 2