Good morning, Digital Neighbors! Sundays are for gratitude, and every day the Almighty extends the same invitation: to be aware of the gift of life and faith, rather than be blind to it. Grateful hearts listen, see, and respond. They bear fruit thirty-, sixty-, or a hundredfold—all to the glory and honor of the One who planted the seed. The harvest belongs to the Master, but we still play our small part by following Him, trusting in Him, and serving Him. Not that He has any need of our service, but He delights to share His goodness through us, with us, and in us.
Today’s longer reflection comes from Sir Walter Raleigh and his poem, penned (or at least believed to have been penned) the night before his beheading. In the reign of Elizabeth, he had been a favorite of the Queen and prospered greatly as a result. He is perhaps best known to posterity as a courtier, navigator, and adventurer—the man credited with introducing potatoes and tobacco to England.
Gotta love a man who brought us both potatoes and tobacco! I’ve never met a potato I couldn’t eat, and I do enjoy smoking a pipe from time to time, along with the occasional cigar. Blessed Sunday dear neighbors!
The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage
Give me my Scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of Faith to walk upon,
My Scrip of Joy, Immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation:
My Gown of Glory, hope’s true gauge,
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.
Blood must be my body’s balmer,
No other balm will there be given
Whilst my soul like a white
Palmer Travels to the land of heaven,
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the Nectar fountains:
And there I’ll kiss The bowl of bliss,
And drink my eternal fill
On every milky hill.
My soul will be adry before,
But after it will thirst no more.
And by the happy blissful way
More peaceful Pilgrims I shall see,
That have shaken off their gowns of clay,
And go appareled fresh like me.
I’ll bring them first To slake their thirst
And then to taste those Nectar suckets
At the clear wells Where sweetness dwells,
Drawn up by Saints in Crystal buckets.
And when our bottles and all we,
Are filled with immortality:
Then the holy paths we’ll travel
Strewed with Rubies thick as gravel,
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral and pearl bowers.
From thence to Heaven’s bribeless hall
Where no Corrupted Lawyers brawl
No Conscience molten into gold,
Nor forged accusers bought and sold,
No cause deferred, nor vain spent Journey,
For there Christ is the King’s Attorney:
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath Angels, but no fees.
When the grand twelve million Jury
Of our sins with dreadful fury,
Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live,
Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted Lawyer, true proceeder,
Thou movest salvation even for alms:
Not with a bribed Lawyer’s palms.
And this is my eternal plea,
To him that made Heaven, Earth and Sea,
Seeing my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread
Set on my soul an everlasting head.
Then am I ready like a palmer fit,
To tread those blest paths which before I writ.
Jose Albafotos - Monk Pilgrimage- Pixabay
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
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The Beautiful
Said the Disciple to the Lover, “Sir, before I left the world I heard certain men who were held in high esteem and thought to know the will of the Beloved say that those who loved the Beautiful did not love the Beloved but loved idols, yet in the Garden of the Beloved we are ever striving to create beauty for the pleasure of the Beloved. Were they then speaking the truth?”
The Lover answered, “Those who said this had never glimpsed the form of the Beloved nor ever truly sought Him, for all beauty is but the reflection of the beauty of the Beloved, although seen very dimly as in a dark and faulty mirror, even as all goodness is a dim reflection of the goodness of the Beloved. So it is that those who love beauty and goodness recognize dimly in them the form of the Beloved and though often in ignorance those who are seeking the Beautiful and the Good are seeking after the Beloved.”
The Comforting of the Disciple
Now the Beloved often came into the Garden both because of the great joy He had in the Garden and because of the great love He bore the Lover and the Disciple. Often He talked with the Lover, but the Disciple because he was not yet perfected in Love could neither hear nor see the Beloved, though he often felt a strange joy, he did not know why. Therefore he was sorrowful, for it seemed to him that on account of his sins he would never find the Beloved. So weeping he came to the Lover and said, “Sir, I know that I am a very sinful man and I much fear that though I search all my life yet on account of my sins I shall never find the Beloved.”
In reply the Lover smiled gently and said, “My son, when you first came into the Garden do you remember what sort of day it was?”
“Yes,” said the Disciple, “I remember it. It was dark and gloomy as if no sunlight ever entered the Garden.”
“When you began to strip off your rich robes,” the Lover asked, “what happened to the day?”
“It seemed,” said the Disciple, “as if the sun had suddenly broken through the clouds and the whole Garden shone with glorious and celestial light: such light as shines daily in the Garden.”
The Lover replied, “Know that the Beloved Himself is the light of the Garden, so that when you began searching for the Beloved even then you found Him, for how can any know the desire to search for the Beloved if He had not already without his knowing revealed Himself to him.”
So the Disciple was greatly comforted by knowing that although he could not see or hear Him he had already found the Beloved, and he labored the more joyously to do the service of the Beloved.
