30 November 2009 No Comment

Ok, I cheated- 8 days is not a week (unless you are the Beatles of course). This quote is the kind of thing I need to read on a Monday when my head has post Sunday hangover (not a real one of course- nary a drop touches my lips …you guessed it- most goes straight down my throat…… Mondays tend to feel a bit like what I imagine a hangover would be . ). It’s the kind of thing I need to hear this week; life has been a bit hectic and Christmas is looming. My brain is so furred right now that I’m not sure if I have used this before:-

‘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

And for my last hymn, which is actually a 20th century one. I discovered this at a bad time; cos it is a hymn it doesn’t sound trite (I find it interesting that the post I have most hits on is one called ‘We believe in Jesus so everything is going to work out!’…are people hitting as it is a deliberately trite title or because they believe and long for that?)  HP675

‘Have faith in God my heart,

Trust and be unafraid;

God will fulfil in every part

Each promise he has made.

 

Have faith in God, my mind,

Though oft your light burns low;

God’s mercy holds a wiser plan

Than you can fully know.

 

Have faith in God, my soul;

His cross for ever stands;

And neither death nor life can pluck

His children from his hands.

 

Lord Jesus, make me whole;

Grant me no resting place,

Until I rest, heart mind and soul.

The captive of your grace.’