January  5, 2004

"Listening to that Soft Still Voice Within"

In Psalm 46, God says, "Be still and know that I am God" (see verse 10 or 11 depending on your translation).  In other words, "Be still and experience Me as God."  Jesus said this to His Apostles when they asked Him to teach them how to pray.  He said, "Whenever you pray, go to your room (that's that inner room within) and close your door" (Mt 6:6).  In other words, shut out the distractions and shut out all the things that you didn't get done and the things that you still have to do.  It's not easy to shut the door and leave all those things and concerns outside the door.  When we resurface, they might still be there but maybe not.  Maybe God will have taken care of them or maybe they're not of that much concern.  Jesus said, "Go to your room.  Close your door and pray to your Father in private" (Mt 6:6) in that inner solitude.  Solitude and silence are extremely important because we're talking about love and intimacy.  In Hosea, once again we hear this call to intimacy when God says, "I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and (there, in that silence, in that solitude where no one is around) will speak to her heart" (Hos 2:16).

Jesus prayed in solitary places.  Scripture says that He would go out to desert places, to lonely places, and to mountaintop places to pray.  In order to pray, Jesus withdrew, even from the Apostles, even if it meant that He had to get up very early in the morning.  Scripture tells us that His personal prayer was such that He would be absorbed (see Mk 1:35).  Here is the teacher, here is the healer, here is the deliverer, but not when He was at prayer.  When He was at prayer, He would be absorbed.  He was like a sponge receiving, just soaking in the Father's love, the Father's Word, which is probably why Jesus later said, "I always do what is pleasing to Him" (Jn 8:29) and "I do nothing by myself.  I say only what I have heard from Him, the truthful one who sent me" (Jn 8: 28).  Jesus received all these insights in prayer.  We need to come into God's presence, into the fire with within.  Teresa of Avila called that inner room "the cave within her heart."

One of our chapels at Bellwether is designed like a cave to remind us that the presence of God is there and that we are entering into a place of silence, a place of solitude, a place of intimacy so that He can speak to our hearts.  Years ago when I knew the Lord was starting to call me out of the cloister after sixteen years, I was getting a little nervous about how I was going to tell my father.  I'm an adult convert, and it was very difficult on my father when I entered the Catholic Church and also when I entered the cloister.  We were one of the strictest cloisters in the world, and he could only visit for a couple of hours once a year.  It's very difficult for even Catholic families to accept let alone non-Catholic families.  There had been so many graces where my father had finally accepted my vocation to be a cloistered nun, and now sixteen years later I was getting called out.  I thought, "Lord, what am I going to tell Daddy?"  That was my first thought. 

So I decided, "I'll write a general letter and kind of allude to the fact that there might be some changes coming.  It will be casual and not too specific to set the stage."  Then I would follow it up with a letter telling him exactly what was happening.  A week after receiving my first general letter, he wrote and said, "I can see by your letter that you've been listening to that still soft voice within."  I thought, "My goodness, Lord, I didn't know my father knew about the Trinity indwelling within him!  He never told me he knew that.  He knew from God that I was being called out.  He knew that I was hearing from that still, soft voice within."

Excerpt from "Were Not Our Hearts Burning Within Us"  Saugherties, NY, 2002.

December 26, 2005

"The Gift of Awareness"

We need to "experience" God.  This is what Mary did.  She had an experience at the Annunciation primarily through listening.    We know that she was full of grace.  She was full of life.  Jesus said, "I am life and I have come to give this in abundance."  She was full of Jesus.   She was full of God.  The Old Testament says, "Listen! That you may have life."  It is so interesting that listening is connected with receiving life.  It's all throughout the Bible.  I think the most difficult part for God might be for Him to get our attention.  We're kind of busy about many things except the one thing that's necessary.  Our Lady wants us to experience, as she did, being overshadowed by the Spirit.  The Holy Spirit, (who we pray about every Sunday in the Creed, or whenever there is a feast day,) is the Lord and giver of life.  So if we are allowing ourselves to be overshadowed by the Spirit, we will be receiving life. 

Mary's heart is a contemplative heart.  A contemplative heart is a listening heart.  It's a receiving heart.  It's a loving heart and it's a believing heart.  Believing is very important in receiving.  I think it's interesting that when Our Lady visited Elizabeth, Elizabeth didn't praise her for being the Mother of God.  The first thing Elizabeth said is, "Blessed are you because you believed."  This belief brings forth Jesus.  It brings forth God's Word.  Paul said, "May Christ find a dwelling place of faith in your hearts" (Eph 3).  That's a great Scripture to ponder.  May He find a dwelling place, may He find a home within our hearts.  He's there if we but believe, if we can check-in with Him, if we can become aware.  When the Holy Spirit overshadows a soul, He makes that soul aware of Jesus. 

When we were first baptized in the Holy Spirit, I think the gift that we received first of all was this gift of awareness.  That was the gift the Holy Spirit was overshadowing us with.  We were aware!  We were aware of life.  We were away of color.  The sky was bluer!  The grass was greener!  The birds were singing more sweetly.  We were just aware of everything that was God.  I can see where people have said, "The whole world becomes a cathedral" for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see.  But that's gift, isn't it?  It's the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. 

So Mary teaches us to believe.  She teaches us by her example.  She teaches us to surrender.  She teaches us to love by her own example, especially when she is there at the foot of the cross in that tremendous agape love.  She is the contemplative par excellence.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "Behold the Handmaid of the Lord," Pecos, NM, 2004.

December 19, 2005  

"Intercession in the Unitive Way"

In the Unitive Way, prayer becomes ever so much simpler.  It is union and intimate conversations all day long.  The soul sings of the glory of God.  Contemplation is totally infused.  The Gifts of the Holy Spirit have been growing within us as we go through these stages and are starting to burst open in full bloom.  Teresa of Avila said there are different ways of seeing God, such as images and visions, but intellectual visions are the highest form.  There is a depth of perception in these infused visions that is hidden from the enemy.  All of a sudden, you just know.  Intercession is not so much what we do as who we are.  It is the Lamb who is the intercessor; He is alive, taking away sin.  After this deep purification has taken place in the Night, there is a deeper capacity for suffering because of union and identification with the Suffering Servant Himself and the joy is immensely increased and there is very deep abiding peace.  There is a tremendous love for the Cross.  There no longer is any fear of being a victim soul for the salvation of souls because the soul knows that it means simply being a victim of God's love so that God can use us as another little sacrificial lamb for others. 

We are motivated by the intense love of God to return with great generosity all that He has done for us.  Jesus and Mary are very important at every stage of the journey.  We begin to realize that we must follow the example of Jesus and Mary.  Souls at this stage really would not want any other option.  They are friends.  They are totally one with Jesus in a very deep way and with Our Lady as well.  They realize more the innocent victim-hood of Jesus.  When a soul has gone through this stage of purification and the Cross, the soul will be led to return to the Cross and get on it again, but now for others.  The soul never leaves the victimhood but it is totally redemptive now because it's not about me.  It is not about each one of us.  It is, now, all for the greater honor and glory of God!

 Love, then, is the motivating force to go back and let God lead us there over and over and over again because the world is in need of life.  We are definitely in a culture of death.  Jesus said, "I have come that you may have life."  The soul knows now that it is in union with Jesus, and this is why we are here - that they, the whole world, everyone, might have life.  This comes from the pierced heart of Jesus.  When the soul is in union with Jesus at this level and the heart is pierced, because of His Presence within, Life, His Life is coming forth for the entire world.

A holy boldness comes now. The intercessor or soul in the Unitive Way doesn't panic anymore like, "What are we going to do?  This didn't go right."  We don't try to sway the outcome.  We don't try to tell God what we want Him to do.  We used to do that in prayer in the beginning stages.  Our intercession changes greatly and becomes just like Our Lady's, who is the model intercessor.  "They have no more wine."  Isn't that simple?  "They haven't any more wine."  She could have gotten all frustrated.  Where were they going to get any wine?  Did they make enough of it last year?"  That's not her concern.  She was prompted by the Spirit and made the request.  That is a perfect example of intercession.  There is a conversion process that is constantly taking place here, of becoming the child, of changing, changing, changing because we are saying yes to God.  He wants us to become as a little child, always, always led.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Heavens - New Earth," Omaha, NE, 2004.

December 12, 2005 

"The Cardinal Virtues"

The cardinal virtue of prudence will give us the right reason, which directs our actions.  First of all, it directs our thoughts to God.  It will count the things of the world as nothing.  Prudence will turn us, right away, to God.  We have a little saying for Intercessors, "Don't take it personally.  Take it to God."  We take everything right to God.  Prudence tells us to do that.  When we do that we are tapping into the gift of the Spirit of counsel.  It is prudent to take counsel and get another opinion. 

Justice gives to everyone what is their due.  Remember, "I have called you for the victory of justice.  I've called you for the victory of salvation."  That comes through the Cross.  Everyone gets what God wants them to have.  God is just.  He's just.  It means He wants everyone to have what is their due and what is their due is His love.  It is salvation.  He, from His point of view, feels He owes it to us.  Isn't that beautiful?  Out of His justice He owes it to us.  He is just and out of that justice of God is so much goodness.

The cardinal virtue of fortitude helps us to hold in the face of opposition.  I remember Father John Mark saying in his homily,  "Hold! Hold!"  This is a tremendous gift that prevents us from being afraid.  If we are really afraid, we're not going to hold.  We can turn tail and run.  Fortitude gives us that courage to follow the heart of a child, to follow the vulnerability, to be open, to be honest, and not be afraid.  Jesus said, "Be not afraid.  Fear not!" so many times.   The virtue of fortitude will help us to  fear not so that we can hold, and for us as intercessors, so that we can hold and stand in the gap.

The fourth cardinal virtue is temperance.  It will help us in the disciplines.  There are many disciplines.  We think of disciplines in fasting and temperance in food and drink.  That is right but it gives us more than that.  It gives us the right reason of temperance.  It gives us the discipline that is more from God.  We used to fast quite severely at one time.  It just got us all puffed up and filled with tremendous pride.  The Lord obviously was saying, "This isn't what I want from you.  I want you to be little and hidden."  This temperance then, that He was beginning to show us is, "Why don't you try to eat things you really don't like?"  You don't have to let anybody know.  It's hidden.  It's sacrificial.  Or "Why don't you try to take a little bit smaller portion of something you really, really like and a little larger portion of something you don't."  There are so many ways to exercise temperance, even at the table.  Temperance gives us a different reason, and is sensitive to discipline.  It's a discipline of how much ministry we should be involved in and how much we shouldn't.  It starts to temper us.  It starts to give us that beautiful balance. 

I didn't realize how important this balance was until I came home from the cloister.  In the cloister everything is very regulated, and I wasn't in ministry.  But when I came home, the ministry started, and I found myself saying yes to everything.  All of a sudden I realized, "Lord, something is wrong here.  I don't think You want me to say yes to everybody!  Yet You want me to be loving and kind and charitable."  He began to show me how this virtue works.  He said, "There has to be a balance now.  There has to be a discipline."  I said, "Well, how can I say no to somebody when maybe I don't have anything else to do?"  I found that saying no was very easy if I had something else to do, but it wasn't so easy when there wasn't anything else taking its place.  The Lord said, "You still say no because I'm telling you to say no.  You need to get disciplined.  You need to have that time.  It's, ‘No.  Thank you very much.  Perhaps some other time, but I'm just not available right now.'"  That is truth.  We don't have to have reasons.  Get out of that bondage.  Temperance helps us with discipline and helps us out of bondage as well.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Jerusalem - New Name" Omaha, NE, 2004.