Tuesday 19th - Mass. Madeleine Delbrel -a French Dorothy Day

Nivard,

Thank you, Fr. Nivard, for "Our Father who is in heaven" Mass introduction.

And below you may like another mystic come to the fore in our Monastic Lectionary - Madeleine Delbrel.

"a French Dorothy Day" 

 Madeleine Delbrêl (1904–1964) was a French Catholic author, poet, and mystic, whose works include The Marxist City as Mission Territory (1957), The Contemporary Forms of Atheism (1962), and the posthumous publications We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (1966) and The Joy of Believing (1968). She came to the Catholic faith after a youth spent as a strict atheist. She has been cited by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray as an example for young people to follow in "the arduous battle of holiness."^{[1] Wikipedia}

 Casarella, Peter (2001). "Madeleine Delbrel--a French Dorothy Day--writes We, the Ordinary People of the Streets". Houston Catholic Worker (Casa Juan Diego) XXI (2) 

 ----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Nivard ....
Sent: Tuesday, 19 February 2013, 8:22
Subject: Our Father

Magnificat Adapted, Tue. (19 Feb 13):

"Our Father who in heaven”.

Scripture:  Matthew 6:7-15

 

“I sought the Lord and he answered me” How? Through his Word who “does not return to him empty”. From all our distress the Lord rescues us. He is “close to the broken-hearted”. He delivers us from all our fears by teaching us to pray “Our Father”.

 

The first word “Our” is very significant. We pray as individuals, heart to heart. But more importantly we pray as members of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church.

 

Father, Help us to be kind and forgiving towards our neighbour as you have been towards us, through Christ our Lord."

From the writings of Madeleine Delbrel (La joie du croire, 71-72)

We give the love of God

My little children, you must truly love one another sums up all that the aged Saint John had to say.

It is God whom we love. Love of God is the first commandment, but the second is like it; that is to say, it is only through others that we can return God's love for us. The dan­ger is that the second commandment may become the first. However, we have a way to check this, which is to love each person as if he were Christ, to love God in every human being, without preference, distinction, or exception.

The second danger is that we may find love impossible, and that is sure to happen if we separate love from faith and hope. It is prayer that gives us faith and hope. Without prayer we can never love. It is in prayer, and prayer alone, that Christ will reveal himself to us in each person we meet, by a faith that grows ever keener and more clear-sighted. It is in prayer that we can ask for the gift of loving each person, a grace without which there can be no love. It is through prayer that our hope will measure up to the stature or number of those we are destined to encounter or to the depth of their needs. It is the expansion of faith and hope by prayer that will clear the path before us of the most cumbersome obstruction to love, 'which is self-concern.

The third danger is that instead of loving as Jesus loved us we may love in a human fashion.This perhaps is the greatest of dangers, since human love, simply because it is love, is a beautiful and noble thing. Unbelievers may show a superb love for others. But we ourselves have not been called to that kind of love. It is not our own love that we have to give: it is the love of God - that love which is a divine Person. That love is God's gift to ourselves, but it remains a gift which must as it were pass through us, bore a channel through us to find its way elsewhere and flow into others. It is a gift that claims sovereign power; we are not to trust in the power of anything else. It is something we may not keep to ourselves, or we risk its being extinguished and ceasing to be a gift.