It’s the Second Sunday of Lent; as a result, I’ve remembered a book (a particular book).
It’s been a long time since I read it, but I remember being particularly struck by and today I can still hear in my unconscious mind encouraging phrases from Marie-Joseph Le Guillou’s book Des êtres sont transfigurés, pourquoi pas nous ? (Some beings have been transfigured, why not us?).
In particular, I remember Father Le Guillou directing us to the faces of Blessed Charles de Foucauld and Saint Thérèse de Lisieux. The former’s eyes have been in some way transfigured. Half the latter’s face has been transfigured. They exude the love and compassion (suffering-with) of God in human portrait, even amid suffering (like Jesus’ glory on the Cross).
And these are gifts, not primarily for these saints, but for the rest of us who are touched by their conscious and unconscious impact on our own attitudes, hopes, and joys. This is precisely the healing of the human – physical and spiritual – condition that the Holy Spirit wants for us, but for which we must sacrifice everything that would otherwise distract us.
If you can read French, I recommend the book for anyone who wants their charity to overflow into seemingly insignificant, material actions and appearances. The book is, for me, a challenge and a comfort.
Contemplative in the Mud 