Welcome To My World!

JUNE 8
ST. WILLIAM OF YORK

William Fitzherbert was born in England in the twelfth century. He was the nephew of King Stephen. As a young man, William was rather easy-going and even a bit lazy. He seems to have given the impression to some that he was not very serious about taking responsibility in life. However, William was very popular with the people of his city of York.

Years later, when the archbishop of York died, William was chosen to take his place. In those times, princes used to interfere in the election of the bishops. This is why many priests did not think William had been properly chosen. It was his uncle, the king, who had appointed him. Even the great St. Bernard persuaded the pope to make someone else archbishop of York. William was asked to step aside because they felt his appointment was not valid. He left his bishop's house feeling hurt and humiliated. He went to live with another uncle, a bishop. It seems that William became a much more spiritual person. He would not accept any of the comforts his uncle offered him. He prayed and performed penances. He began to show how much he cared about his faith and about the Church.

The people of York were angry at what had happened to their archbishop. They could not understand how something like this could take place. There were street fights between those who wanted William and those who did not. Six years passed. William lived a quiet life of prayer in the home of his uncle, the bishop. He asked the Lord for peace for his archdiocese. It did not matter any more if he had been treated unjustly. What mattered was that his people be taken care of.

Finally, his prayers were answered. When the other archbishop died, the pope sent William back to York. He arrived in May, 1154. The people were very happy. But William was an old man by this time, and about a month later, he died.

He was proclaimed a saint by Pope Honorius III in 1227.

Daily Reading & Meditation

Thursday (6/8): "Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength"

Scripture: Mark 12:28-34

28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?" 29 Jesus answered, "The first is, `Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this, `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." 32 And the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and there is no other but he; 33 and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And after that no one dared to ask him any question.

Meditation: What is the purpose of God's law or commandments? The Pharisees prided themselves in the knowledge of the law and their ritual requirements. They made it a life-time practice to study the 616 precepts of the Old Testament along with the numerous rabbinic commentaries. They tested Jesus to see if he correctly understood the law as they did. Jesus startled them with his profound simplicity and mastery of the law of God and its purpose. What does God require of us? Simply that we love as he loves! God is love and everything he does flows from his love for us. God loved us first and our love for him is a response to his exceeding grace and kindness towards us. The love of God comes first and the love of neighbor is firmly grounded in the love of God. The more we know of God's love and truth the more we love what he loves and reject what is hateful and contrary to his will. What makes our love for God and his commands grow in us? Faith in God and hope in his promises strengthens us in the love of God. They are essential for a good relationship with God, for being united with him. The more we know of God the more we love him and the more we love him the greater we believe and hope in his promises. The Lord, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, gives us a new freedom to love as he loves. Do you allow anything to keep you from the love of God and the joy of serving others with a generous heart? Paul the Apostle says: hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us (Romans 5:5). Do you know the love which conquers all?

"We love you, O our God; and we desire to love you more and more. Grant to us that we may love you as much as we desire, and as much as we ought. O dearest friend, who has so loved and saved us, the thought of whom is so sweet and always growing sweeter, come with Christ and dwell in our hearts; that you keep a watch over our lips, our steps, our deeds, and we shall not need to be anxious either for our souls or our bodies. Give us love, sweetest of all gifts, which knows no enemy. Give us in our hearts pure love, born of your love to us, that we may love others as you love us. O most loving Father of Jesus Christ, from whom flows all love, let our hearts, frozen in sin, cold to you and cold to others, be warmed by this divine fire. So help and bless us in your Son." (Prayer of Anselm, 12th cen.)

HARMONY

For all his traditional ways, the Master has scant respect for rules and for traditions. A quarrel once broke out between a disciple and his daughter because the man kept insisting that the girl conform to the rules of their religion in the choice of her prospective husband. The Master openly sided with the girl. When the disciple expressed his surprise that the holy man would do this, the Master said, "You must understand that life is just like music, which is made more by feeling and by instinct than by rules".

MORSEL:
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

GENIUS

A writer arrived at the monastery to write a book about the Master.

"People say you are a genius. Are you"? he asked.

"You might say so", said the Master, none too modestly.

"And what makes one a genius"?

"The ability to recognize".

"Recognize what"?

"The butterfly in a caterpillar; the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being".

MORSEL:
Sincerity is a transparent diamond through which the light of God shines in our lives.

FANTASY

"What is the greatest enemy of Enlightenment"?

"Fear".

"And where does fear come from"?

"Delusion".

"And what is delusion"?

"To think that the flowers around you are poisonous snakes".

"How shall I attain Enlightenment"?

"Open your eyes and see".

"What"?

"That there isn't a single snake around".

MORSEL:
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? -- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

EMPTINESS

Sometimes there would be a rush of noisy visitors and the silence of the monastery would be shattered. This would upset the disciples; not the Master, who seemed just as content with the noise as with the silence. To his protesting disciples he said one day, "Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self".

MORSEL:
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. -- Marcus Aurelius

DECEPTION

"How shall we distinguish the true mystic from the false"? asked the disciples who had an inordinate interest in the occult.

"How do you distinguish the true sleeper from the one who is feigning sleep"? asked the Master.

"There's no way. Only the sleeper knows when he is feigning", said the disciples.

The Master smiled.

Later he said, "The feigning sleeper can delude others - he cannot delude himself. The false mystic, unfortunately, can delude both others and himself.

MORSEL:
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced - even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. -- John Keats (1795-1821)

SPIRITUALITY

An alcoholic said to the Master:

"What would spirituality give me"?

"Nonalcoholic intoxication", was the answer.

MORSEL:
Happiness is intrinsic, it's an internal thing. When you build it into yourself, no external circumstances can take it away. That kind of happiness is a twenty-four-hour thing. -- Leo F. Buscaglia

BEING

"What must I do to attain holiness"? said a traveler.

"Follow your heart", said the Master.

That seemed to please the traveler.

Before he left, however, the Master said to him in a whisper, "To follow your heart you are going to need a strong constitution".

MORSEL:
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
-- Simone Weil

ADULTHOOD

To a disciple who was always at his prayers the Master said, "When will you stop leaning on God and stand on your own two feet"?

The disciple was astonished. "But you are the one who taught us to look on God as Father"!

"When will you learn that a father isn't someone you can lean on but someone who rids you of your tendency to lean"?

MORSEL:
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Devil Outwitted By An Old Woman

The Devil was angry at the conversion of Sussex, one of the last counties to be converted from Paganism, and especially at the way churches were being built in every Sussex village. So he decided to dig right through the South Downs, a range of hills along the south of Britain. He swore that he would dig all the way through the hills to let the sea flood Sussex in a single night and drown the new Christians. He started inland near the village of Poynings and dug furiously sending huge clods of earth everywhere. One became Chanctonbury hill, another Cissbury hill, another Rackham Hill and yet another Mount Caburn.

Towards midnight, the noise he was making disturbed an old woman, who looked out to see what was happening. When she realized what the Devil was doing, she lit a candle and set it on her windowsill, holding up a metal sieve in front of it to create a dimly glowing globe. The Devil could barely believe that the sun had already risen, but the old woman had woken her rooster who let out a loud crowing and Satan fled believing that the morning had already come. Some say, that as he fled out over the English Channel, a great lump of earth fell from his cloven hoof, and that became the Isle of Wight; others say that he bounded northwards into Surrey, where his heavy landing formed the hollow called the Devil's Punch Bowl.

The Dun Horse

Long ago there was an old man who had three sons. The older sons looked after the farm, but the youngest, Ivan the Fool, just sat all day on the great kitchen stove. One day the father knew he was dying. He called his sons and said: "When I am dead, bring bread to my grave for three nights, as is the custom of our fathers."

The first night after the father's death was the eldest son's turn to bring the bread to the grave, but the night was dark, the wind was howling, and he was afraid to go. So he said: "you go, Ivan. Nothing ever happens to fools." Ivan went fearlessly and laid the bread on his father's grave. The father's ghost came out, thanked him kindly, ate the bread and disappeared. The next night was the second's brother's turn, but the night was dark, the wind was howling, and he was afraid to go. Again Ivan went, and the father's ghost graciously accepted the gift.

The third night was dark, the wind was howling, and it was Ivan's own turn. The ghost ate the bread and said: "Ivan, do not come back to my grave, as I am now going to heaven. You were the only son who kept the faith, so I shall reward you. Go to the field and call: 'Dun horse, magic horse, come when I call you!' And when he comes, mount him. God bless you, my son."

The next day, the Tsar issued a proclamation. All the young unmarried men were to come to the Tsar's courtyard. In the window of the tallest tower the Tsar's only daughter would be sitting. The young men would jump their horses right up to her. If one could reach her and kiss her lips, he would be her husband and the next Tsar. The two older brothers immediately put on their finest clothes and mounted the best horses, completely forgetting Ivan. So Ivan went to the field and called: "Dun horse, magic horse, come when I call you!"

Thundering hooves, flying tail and flame streaming from his nostrils, the dun horse came. Ivan mounted him and immediately turned into a handsome young man, dressed in the finest clothes! He rode to the Tsar's courtyard, and watched as the young men were defeated, one by one, in their efforts to reach the princess. Then he rode to the window and looked at her, so high above, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. The princess smiled at him. She liked the handsome young man on the fabulous dun horse very much!

Without word, Ivan turned the horse. A hush fell over the crowd as he circled the courtyard, urged the horse on and took the jump at full gallop. Like an arrow he shot to the window and kissed the princess on her lips!

The Tsar gave the greatest wedding banquet ever seen in Russia. He thought he was blessed to have such a magician for a son-in-law! Ivan's brothers certainly did not think he was a fool anymore, and were proud of him. Ivan and his princess lived happily ever after, and ruled Russia better than anyone before or after.

Daily Reading & Meditation

Wednesday (6/7): "You know neither the scriptures nor the power of God"

Scripture: Mark 12:18-27

18 And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, 19 "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the wife, and raise up children for his brother. 20 There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no children; 21 and the second took her, and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; 22 and the seven left no children. Last of all the woman also died. 23 In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife." 24 Jesus said to them, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, `I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? 27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong."

Meditation: The Sadducees had one big problem -- they could not conceive of heaven beyond what they could see with their naked eyes! Aren’t we often like them? We don’t recognize spiritual realities because we try to make heaven into an earthly image. The Sadducees came to Jesus with a test question to make the resurrection look ridiculous. The Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in immortality, nor in angels or evil spirits. Their religion was literally grounded in an earthly image of heaven. Jesus retorts by dealing with the fact of the resurrection. The scriptures give proof of it. In Exodus 3:6, God calls himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He defeats their arguments by showing that God is a living God of a living people. God was the friend of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when they lived. That friendship could not cease with death. As Psalm 73:23-24 states: "I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory." The Holy Spirit reveals to us the eternal truths of God’s unending love and the life he desires to share with us for all eternity. Paul the Apostle, quoting from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 64:4; 65:17) states: “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,” God has revealed to us through the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). The promise of paradise -- heavenly bliss and unending life with an all-loving God — is beyond human reckoning. We have only begun to taste the first-fruits! Do you believe the scriptures and do you know the power of the Holy Spirit?

“May the Lord Jesus put his hands on our eyes also, for then we too shall begin to look not at what is seen but at what is not seen. May he open the eyes that are concerned not with the present but with what is yet to come, may he unseal the heart’s vision, that we may gaze on God in the Spirit, through the same Lord, Jesus Christ, whose glory and power will endure throughout the unending succession of ages.” (Prayer of Origen, c. 185-254)