Misericordes oculos

Turn then, most Gracious Advocate, thine *eyes of mercy* toward us…

Eyes fascinate me.

They show so much about a person (i.e. “windows to the soul”).
They’re so important to our daily lives.
They’re one of the very first things I notice about the opposite sex
If something’s irritating them, we’re all but incapacitated (i.e. why pepper spray deters attackers, why getting something in your contact is one of the worst feelings ever).

Paintings depicting Jesus’ and Mary’s eyes are so compelling… But can you imagine what they would have looked like in real life?!

The first line I have here is from the prayer, Hail, Holy Queen. The Latin for “eyes of mercy” is “misericordes oculos”, and if you break the word down into its roots (okay, okay, I’m like the only one who’s going to do this, so I’ll share the insight, ha ha), the first part is pity or mercy, while the second part means heart.

So in Mary’s eyes, not only do we see regular old mercy, but we are shown the mercy of her heart… Her Immaculate Heart… the fount of her innermost truth and purity.

In our Merton discussion today, we talked about praying from the heart: the simplicity and depth of it, and what we really mean by “simple” prayer and even the concept of “the heart” beyond the actual organ.

The simplest of prayers that the Trappist monks and primitive pray-ers used was “Lord, the meditation of my heart is in Your sight.” In other words, “Lord, you know my heart,” a prayer I actually say quite often when I get to the point where all I feel like I’m doing is giving God lists and lists of intentions.

How tightly these two body parts are tied — eyes and heart — to our souls and our prayers.

Something to think about: How many other ways is your flesh made spritual? Many, if you think about it….

3 Words

It’s the shortest verse in the Bible.

John 11:35: “And Jesus wept.”

In three words, we have the realest, most human moment of our divine savior.

Jesus cried.
His friend died, and he was moved to full-out tears.
He raised him from the dead a mere 8 verses later, but in that split-second, he mourned his friend.

And what a savior we have! Not only unafraid of crying (what a man!), but also so moved with love that even though He knew that in a minute He would go ahead and fix everything, He still FELT.

How beautiful.

Standard of Living

It is possible to believe in something and still fail to live up to it.
~Dr. Wilson on “House, M.D.”

I was watching an old House rerun on TV the other day, and it was back when they were doing a whole run of shows challenging House’s atheistic/gnostic views with patients who were deeply religious. It was really well done and interesting (surprise, surprise!), I must say. This particular quote comes from House being all high and mighty because someone who was a borderline-crazy religious person was a big fat sinner… and Wilson responds with this wisdom (to which House has zero reply).

What beliefs do you fail to uphold every single day? What standards have you set for yourself based on your morals and values… which ones have you not quite reached?

The Lord, who sees in secret, knows how much I’ve failed. It’s a lot. More than anyone could/should know.

How many times do we say one thing with our lips and another with our lives? Just like the hypocrites that Jesus criticizes over and over again!

I catch myself doing this all the time!

And yet… the miracle of it all… is that HE LOVES US ANYWAY and still wants us to be his disciples!

Look at what Paul, one of the top 5 apostles, felt:

Romans 7:15-21

What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.
Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good.
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.

Talk about using the weak to show up the strong! Sheesh.

1 Cor 1:26-31

Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise by human standards,
not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth.
Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,
who became for us wisdom from God,
as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
so that, as it is written,
“Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

I can only hope that, little by little, I can gain all these things in order to be ABLE to boast in the Lord! But first, I have to get rid of the tendency to boast about myself. And try to follow what I believe, practice what I preach and all.

And walk the walk that I talk.

Lover of my soul

Happy Valentine’s Day/Black Hearts’ Day/Singles’ Awareness Day…

I’m not going to lie, I was pretty depressed yesterday.
It’s hard not to be when you don’t have a “Valentine.”

And it’s not that I’m jealous of those who aren’t single, and it’s not even that I think people are rubbing it in.

It’s that I know that the person meant to be my significant other has a lot of standards to hit! So it’s a little frustrating that so many men just don’t… cut it.

But then, that’s me trying to do MY will instead of GOD’S will again…

It’s actually quite amazing, because after being depressed all day, right after my PSR class last night, I just got this total inspiration to be productive and be on top of things and just be… happy. So I conquered my desk at work, plowing through a covering of literally at least 2 inches of paper EVERYWHERE. Granted, it took me four hours to do so, and I left the church at a little before midnight, but it felt GREAT.

Then I had the energy to clean a whole lot at the apartment this morning too!

And I was thinking about this sudden change of mood, and you know what? It’s a prayer answered. I asked Jesus to be with me… and then He just was.

I have this prayer card posted on my cabinet at work — we made them for the Young Adults this summer, and it’s just so great. It has JPII on one side, and this quote on the back, from his address at World Youth Day 2000 (I WAS THERE!). It just sums up exactly what I was feeling and what just happened.

Funny… almost makes you believe in God…

It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness, he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fulness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.

Okay, God, I hear you.