CIS NEWSLETTER 
No. 61 - January 2009

In Search for Meaning

As human beings we discover within ourselves a great need to know. We are often tormented by the question of our origins and our future. Because we are capable of reflecting (of watching ourselves live, grow and die) we find ourselves searching for meaning and understanding. These are questions which we ask ourselves when we are in solitude, where real thought is borne.

We may have questions regarding our faith experience. How do we come to be believers? It is difficult to say how one comes to believe in God and in his son Jesus. As Christians we may know ourselves in a vague but confident way to be children of God, we are aware of being given existence at every moment by the Father who makes us breathe, love, live, be and grow in love towards Him (God) and our fellow brothers and sisters. As we recollect our thoughts in prayer we may experience the mysterious peace which invades our hearts and whole beings. But what gives us the verification of our experience? There are people who talk about the profound intuition of their spirit which allows them to affirm that they are certain of the infinite Love which beats in their hearts.
There are others who are affirmed by the witness of fellow believers or other believers through the centuries, who have made a mysterious encounter through a human experience: like Mother Theresa who was initiated in faith by her parents and then became the apostle of God’s love to the poor in our time; St Paul who could talk about the time before and the time after the conversion and then became the apostle proclaiming Jesus of Nazareth, though he was dead, as the Living One(Acts 25.19).
Yet, as Christians, we may experience interior darkness as regards to our faith. This can be a profound and challenging time in our spiritual process which requires that we trust the slow work of God in our lives and in the world. In such experiences of darkness, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Sj invites us to “give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you (us) and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself (ourselves) in suspense…”. The Vesper Hymn below expresses such search for the Living God within oneself and in the world:

The world reflects the infinity of your presence.
For your hands formed it.
But it groans in exile, and cries out in desolation, hearing only your silence.

Hidden in the depths of your mystery, we recognize you without ever grasping you.
Only the poor can welcome you, their hearts burning with expectation, their eyes turned towards your light. (Vesper hymn, Wednesday evening, Third Week)

Below is the whole Poem from which this quote has been taken.
 

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability -
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,
Let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in
suspense and incomplete.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin sj
 

Continuing reflection and action

• In your personal search for meaning and understanding, what is the beacon that illuminates the way?

• What gives you the verification of your faith experience? How can you explain your faith experience to a young Christian or to a non-believer?

• In the experience of interior darkness, how can one ‘give the Lord the benefit of believing’?
  
  
   

Rosaline Scicluna
 

Book Review

Story of a Soul
The autobiography of St. Theresa of Lisieux
A new translation from the original manuscripts
By John Clarke, OCD
Carmel International Publishing House, Kerala, India, 2005
ISBN 81-87655-54-2
 

I was pleasantly surprised when I read this book. Some time ago I did try to read it, but let it go as so much childish reminiscences. Lately I took it up again with a sense of purpose and was impressed by it and by its author. For Therese knows herself to be loved by God and affirms this again and again with a surprising candour. As a mature young woman of twenty-two, she recounts and reflects on her life and always her emphasis is on love which she receives and gives so sincerely. She grows into a life intertwined with the life of her Lover. Most of the years of her young life were taken up by her attention to her Lord. Then her consciousness opened up and she realized that she must spread out her love to others. As she wrote, her vocation was to love.
One has to bear in mind that from ages 15 to 24 (she died, suffering from tuberculosis, on September 30th, 1897, at 7.20 p.m.), Theresa was enclosed in the Carmel of Lisieux. One could think that the examples she notes down would be more properly exercised by a beginner in the spiritual life. Yet she performed these with deep simplicity and profound love.
There is no love without self-abnegation. Theresa did not like to indulge in self-inflicted sufferings, not even for the Lord. She simply accepted what came her way, her “little way” as she called it. She trusted fully in Divine Providence. (The book “Abandonment to Divine Providence”, written by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J., had been published in 1861. Theresa was born in 1873.)
The autobiography of St. Theresa consists of three documents: (1) Written at the request of her sister Pauline, Agnes in religious life and Prioress, recounts her life up to her entrance into Carmel. (2) Written at the request of her sister Marie, also a Carmelite, Theresa open for us her Treasure, i.e. her relationship with her Lord, “Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love . . . my vocation, at last I have found it . . . MY VOCATION IS LOVE! (Theresa’s emphasis) Yes, I have found my place in the Church, and it is you, O my God, who have given me this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be love. Thus I shall be everything and thus my dream will be realized.” (3) Written at the request of Mother Gonzague, her Prioress, about her life as a mature religious. It seems to me that reading this biography should not be an exercise in curiosity, or just for study, but an answer to a challenge.
I would have liked the book to have more photographs of the saint included in it. We do have them, from her childhood to her death. The photographs of Theresa confirm her writings and show clearly what a lovable person she was and is still.

Fr. Victor Degabriele SJ
 

Prayer
 

Prayer

"Lord, I do not want to gather merit for heaven...in the evening of this life I will appear before You with empty hands. For I do not ask you, O Lord, in any way to count my good works. Rather, I will clothe myself with Your justice and receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself."

from various writings of St Therese of Lisieux
Amen.
 

CIS programme

 

Jannar

Nofs ta’ nhar ta’ riflessjoni fuq kif nuża l-immaġinazzjoni fit-talb (Kontemplazzjoni Injazjana)
 

Tul dan in-nofs ta’ nhar ser naraw kif nistgħu nitolbu bl-Iskrittura billi nużaw l-immaġinazzjoni tagħna.

Data :         17 ta’ Jannar 2009 mid-9.00 a.m. sas-2.00 p.m. (bl-ikel inkluż)
Tmexxi :     Ms Mary Clare Camilleri
Post :         Mount St Joseph Retreat House, Mosta.

Frar
 

Irtiri ta’ ‘Weekend’ għall-Miżżewġin

Il-Weekend huwa okkażjoni għall-dawk il-koppji miżżewġa li jixtiequ jġeddu u jiċċelebraw il-wegħediet taż-żwieġ tagħhom. Din hija esperjenza spiritwali b’differenza. Il-Weekend huwa mfassal li jkun kreattiv fejn il-partners jirriflettu u jitolbu flimkien. Ikun hemm ħin ta’ sharing fi grupp magħmul minn 8 koppji. Dan il-Weekend joffri opportunità lill-koppji parteċipanti sabiex jiskopru dejjem aktar l-imħabba li Alla għandu għall-miżżewġin u l-familji tagħhom.

Data:          Mill-Ġimgħa 13 ta’ Frar, 2009, fis-6.00 p.m sal-Ħadd 15 ta’ Frar, fil-5.00 p.m.
Jiffaċilitaw:   Il-Koppja Carmen u Karm Conti u Fr. Vince Magri S.J.
Post:           Mount St. Joseph Retreat House, Mosta
Parteċipanti: Mhux aktar minn 8 koppji.


San Pawl u San Injazju: Żewġ pellegrini fuq il-passi ta’ Ġesù
 

F’dan il-‘weekend’ nirriflettu u nitolbu fis-skiet fuq dawn iż-żewġ qaddisin li sabu triqthom fil-mixja taghhom wara Kristu. Fost affarijiet oħra nikkonċentraw fuq is-sitwazzjoni, is-sejħa, id-dixxerniment, u l-għażla tagħhom.

Data:           Mill-Ġimgħa 13 ta’ Frar 2009 fis-7.00 p.m. sal-Ħadd 15 ta’ Frar wara l-pranzu.
Imexxi:        Fr Pierre Grech Marguerat, S.J.
Post:           Mount St Joseph Retreat House, Mosta.

Ir-Randan: żmien ta’ konverżjoni.
Irtir fis-skiet bi tħejjija għar-Randan.

Data:          Mill-Ġimgha, 20 ta' Frar, 2009, fis-7.00 p.m., sal-Ħadd 22 ta’ Frar wara l-pranzu.
Imexxi:       Fr. Nazju Borg, STL MA, Dip. Lit., Dip. Mar., Dip. Arch., Kappillan ta’ San Lawrenz.
Post:          Dar Manresa, Victoria, Għawdex.