Quien a Dios tiene nada le falta

On a whim - read: nudging of the Spirit - I clicked the video of Nada te turbe at Margaret's Leave It Lay and listened once again to this moving prayer from the bookmark of Teresa de Jesús.



Todo se pasa - all things pass
Dios no se muda - God does not change
Quien a Dios tiene nada le falta - who holds to God lacks nothing

As I listened the image of Mount Calvary in ashes arose and, you could predict this, the tears arose with it. I thought of the brothers cast out and thrown back on God alone.

Now is the time they must hold to the Holy Cross, the Tree of Life.

On my lap right now is my copy of the Order's breviary. It is a bit battered, having been used daily for many years (not lately, I do confess). I got it at Mount Calvary and used it there and at Incarnation Priory in Berkeley when praying with the brethren and mostly on my own. I used to pray the Office riding the RTD in Los Angeles to and from work and Diurnum at lunch on the campus of Occidental College (a few blocks from where I worked in Eagle Rock for Sparkletts Drinking Water). It shaped me forever.

Actually, it is the second copy as the first one was falling apart from daily use.

I think on the great wrought iron cross in the courtyard with its elegant filigree and symbols of the passion and the golden heart in the middle.

These are the antiphons of the feast of Father Founder:

On the Psalter

1. The Cross is our all-sufficient treasure, and his love our never-ending reward.
2. We are to look for the riches of God as we depend less on the riches of the world.
3. Holiness is the brightness of divine love; love must act as light mus shine and fire must burn.
4. Humility, obedience, love: this is the holiness without which we cannot see the Lord.
5. We are to be continually prasing God; we are practicing for the endless alleluias of the heavenly courts.

On the Magnificat at 1st Vespers

The ladder of the Cross is planted firmly within our house and angels pass up and down that stairway.

On the Benedictus

We cannot help others by giving them what is our own; we must impart to them the strength of Christ's Body, the fruits of the Spirit.

On the Psalter at Diurnum

We must rejoice in the holy Cross as the glory of the Christian name.

On the Magnificat at 2nd Vespers

Ask them to forgive me; tell them I forgive them. I want them to have joy; I will always intercede.

Another nudge? I just thought I should share these.

Prayer for the Order of the Holy Cross:
Lord Jesus Christ, in different ways you call your elect ones to follow you, yet you draw them all by the love of your saving Cross: Favorably accept your servants who have devoted themselves to you in the Order of the Holy Cross. Of your mercy grant that, as through fellowship in your sufferings they are made conformable to your death, so they may ever show forth you, their true life; who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, on God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Familiar words that I have prayed hundreds of times and now pray with love and an aching heart.

The Cross is our all-sufficient treasure, and his love our never-ending reward.

--the BB