Waves
“People travel to wonder at the heights of the mountains,
at huge waves of the sea,
at the long courses of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars . . .
And they pass by themselves without wondering.”
St. Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions
Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life. [Psalm 42:7-8 NRSV]
all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life. [Psalm 42:7-8 NRSV]
"O My God! Will Your Justice alone find souls willing to immolate themselves as victims? Does not Your Merciful Love need them too? On every side this love is unknown, rejected; those hearts upon whom You would lavish it turn to creatures.… [They] do this instead of throwing themselves into Your arms and of accepting Your infinite Love. O my God! Is Your disdained Love going to remain closed up within Your Heart? It seems to me that if You were to find souls offering themselves as victims of holocaust to Your Love, You would consume them rapidly; it seems to me, too, that You would be happy not to hold back the waves of infinite tenderness within You. If Your Justice loves to release itself, this Justice which extends only over the earth, how much more does Your Merciful Love desire to set souls on fire since Your Mercy reaches to the heavens. O my Jesus, let me be this happy victim; consume Your holocaust with the fire of Your Divine Love! Lord, Jesus, make me the one. Help me help others to see Your thirst, too."
—Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul
—Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul
"We Christians are not the only ones for whom faith is very important. Everything that is accomplished in the world, even by those outside the Church, is accomplished by faith. By faith the laws of marriage bring together those who lived as strangers: because of the faith in marriage contracts, a stranger becomes part of a stranger’s person and possessions. By faith the farmer keeps at his work, for anyone who did not believe that he would get the harvest would not stand for the hard work. By faith sailors, trusting to the thinnest board, trade the land—that most solid element—for the restless motion of the waves, committing themselves to uncertain hopes, and carrying with them a faith surer than any anchor. So by faith most of human affairs are held together. Not only we have this belief, but—as I said—outsiders as well. For if they do not believe the Scriptures, but hold certain teachings of their own, even these they accept on faith."
–St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 2, 17-19
–St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 2, 17-19
THE SWAN
This heaviness, toiling on as if in bonds through a landscape of things still undone, is like the makeshift walking of the swan.
And dying—to feel slowly giving way that ground on which we daily stand, like his uneasy lowering of himself—: into the water, which received him gently and which, so serene in its passing, withdraws beneath him, wave on wave; while he, infinitely still and sure, with ever greater confidence and kingship and self-possession deigns to glide.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. The Poetry of Rilke (p. 157).
This heaviness, toiling on as if in bonds through a landscape of things still undone, is like the makeshift walking of the swan.
And dying—to feel slowly giving way that ground on which we daily stand, like his uneasy lowering of himself—: into the water, which received him gently and which, so serene in its passing, withdraws beneath him, wave on wave; while he, infinitely still and sure, with ever greater confidence and kingship and self-possession deigns to glide.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. The Poetry of Rilke (p. 157).
"Yet we may not live on just anyhow – no, we have a strife to strive and a fight to fight. What is it we must do? We must love God with all our strength, with all our might, with all our heart, with all our soul, we must love our neighbour as ourselves. These two commandments we must keep and if we follow after these, if we are devoted to this, we are not alone, for our Father in Heaven is with us, helps us and guides us, gives us strength day by day, hour by hour, and so we can do all things through Christ who gives us might.
We are strangers in the earth, hide not Thy commandments from us. Open Thou our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. Teach us to do Thy will and influence our hearts that the love of Christ may constrain us and that we may be brought to do what we must do to be saved. On the road from earth to Heaven
Do Thou guide us with Thine eye
We are weak but Thou art mighty
Hold us with Thy powerful hand.
Our life we might compare it to a journey, we go from the place where we were born to a far off haven. Our earlier life might be compared to sailing on a river, but very soon the waves become higher, the wind more violent, we are at sea almost before we are aware of it – and the prayer from the heart ariseth to God: Protect me o God, for my bark is so small and Thy sea is so great. The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too. The heart that seeks for God and for a Godly life has more storms than any other. Let us see how the Psalmist describes a storm at sea. He must have felt the storm in his heart to describe it so. We read in the 107th Psalm: They that go down to the sea in ships that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and raiseth up a stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to Heaven they go down again to the depth, their soul melteth in them because of their trouble. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and He bringeth them out of their distress. He bringeth them unto their desired haven.
Do we not feel this sometimes on the sea of our lives? Does not everyone of you feel with me the storms of life or their forebodings or their recollections?
And now let us read a description of another storm at sea in the New Testament, as we find it in the VIth Chapter of the Gospel according to St. John in the 17th to the 21th verse. And the disciples entered into a ship and went over the sea towards Capernaum. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing nigh unto the ship and they were afraid. Then they willingly received Him into the ship and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. You who have experienced the great storms of life, you over whom all the waves and all the billows of the Lord have gone – have you not heard when your heart failed for fear the beloved well-known voice – with something in its tone that reminded you of the voices that charmed your childhood – the voice of Him whose name is Saviour and Prince of peace, saying as it were to you personally – mind to you personally: ‘It is I, be not afraid.’ Fear not. Let not your heart be troubled.
And we whose lives have been calm up to now, calm in comparison of what others have felt – let us not fear the storms of life, amidst the high waves of the sea and under the grey clouds of the sky we shall see Him approaching for Whom, we have so often longed and watched. Him we need so – and we shall hear His voice: ‘It is I, be not afraid.’
And if after an hour or season of anguish or distress or great difficulty or pain or sorrow we hear Him ask us: ‘Dost Thou love me?’ then let us say: Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee. And let us keep that heart full of the love of Christ and may from thence issue a life which the love of Christ constraineth. Lord Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee. When we look back on our past, we feel sometimes as if we did love Thee, for whatsoever we have loved, we loved in Thy name.
Have we not often felt as a widow and an orphan – in joy and prosperity as well and more even than under grief, because the thought of Thee. Truly our soul waiteth for Thee more than they that watch for the morning – our eyes are up unto Thee, 0 Thou who dwellest in Heavens. In our days too there can be such a thing as seeking the Lord.
What is it we ask of God – is it a great thing? Yes it is a great thing: peace for the ground of our heart, rest for our soul – give us that one thing and then we want not much more, then we can do without many things, then can we suffer great things for Thy name’s sake. We want to know that we are Thine and that Thou art ours, we want to be thine – to be Christians. We want a Father, a Father’s love and a Father’s approval. May the experience of life make our eye single and fix it on Thee. May we grow better as we go on in life."
The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh - excerpt taken from a letter to Theo Van Gogh October 31, 1876
We are strangers in the earth, hide not Thy commandments from us. Open Thou our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. Teach us to do Thy will and influence our hearts that the love of Christ may constrain us and that we may be brought to do what we must do to be saved. On the road from earth to Heaven
Do Thou guide us with Thine eye
We are weak but Thou art mighty
Hold us with Thy powerful hand.
Our life we might compare it to a journey, we go from the place where we were born to a far off haven. Our earlier life might be compared to sailing on a river, but very soon the waves become higher, the wind more violent, we are at sea almost before we are aware of it – and the prayer from the heart ariseth to God: Protect me o God, for my bark is so small and Thy sea is so great. The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too. The heart that seeks for God and for a Godly life has more storms than any other. Let us see how the Psalmist describes a storm at sea. He must have felt the storm in his heart to describe it so. We read in the 107th Psalm: They that go down to the sea in ships that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and raiseth up a stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to Heaven they go down again to the depth, their soul melteth in them because of their trouble. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and He bringeth them out of their distress. He bringeth them unto their desired haven.
Do we not feel this sometimes on the sea of our lives? Does not everyone of you feel with me the storms of life or their forebodings or their recollections?
And now let us read a description of another storm at sea in the New Testament, as we find it in the VIth Chapter of the Gospel according to St. John in the 17th to the 21th verse. And the disciples entered into a ship and went over the sea towards Capernaum. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing nigh unto the ship and they were afraid. Then they willingly received Him into the ship and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. You who have experienced the great storms of life, you over whom all the waves and all the billows of the Lord have gone – have you not heard when your heart failed for fear the beloved well-known voice – with something in its tone that reminded you of the voices that charmed your childhood – the voice of Him whose name is Saviour and Prince of peace, saying as it were to you personally – mind to you personally: ‘It is I, be not afraid.’ Fear not. Let not your heart be troubled.
And we whose lives have been calm up to now, calm in comparison of what others have felt – let us not fear the storms of life, amidst the high waves of the sea and under the grey clouds of the sky we shall see Him approaching for Whom, we have so often longed and watched. Him we need so – and we shall hear His voice: ‘It is I, be not afraid.’
And if after an hour or season of anguish or distress or great difficulty or pain or sorrow we hear Him ask us: ‘Dost Thou love me?’ then let us say: Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee. And let us keep that heart full of the love of Christ and may from thence issue a life which the love of Christ constraineth. Lord Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee. When we look back on our past, we feel sometimes as if we did love Thee, for whatsoever we have loved, we loved in Thy name.
Have we not often felt as a widow and an orphan – in joy and prosperity as well and more even than under grief, because the thought of Thee. Truly our soul waiteth for Thee more than they that watch for the morning – our eyes are up unto Thee, 0 Thou who dwellest in Heavens. In our days too there can be such a thing as seeking the Lord.
What is it we ask of God – is it a great thing? Yes it is a great thing: peace for the ground of our heart, rest for our soul – give us that one thing and then we want not much more, then we can do without many things, then can we suffer great things for Thy name’s sake. We want to know that we are Thine and that Thou art ours, we want to be thine – to be Christians. We want a Father, a Father’s love and a Father’s approval. May the experience of life make our eye single and fix it on Thee. May we grow better as we go on in life."
The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh - excerpt taken from a letter to Theo Van Gogh October 31, 1876