September 11, 2001
Just as we were getting
ready to send Journey and the Joy to the printers, we heard about
the World Trade Center towers. The following is a brief reflection that
we included in the fall issue.
A Light Burns On
Minutes after the World Trade Center Event, we received a call asking us to pray. We did that, and we lit a candle to symbolize that there is a light no darkness can put out. Meister Eckhart writes that there is no joy or sorrow that comes to us that has not first passed through the Heart of God.
We pray that our tears will be mingled with those of God and that our suffering nation will be held safely in God's embrace. A light burns on, constant and unimperiled.
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In the Fall issue of our (CCA) Carmelite Communities Associated Newsletter, we were once again made aware of how much the symbol of the cross means in difficult times. The following words are by Edith Stein (a Saint and a Carmelite Nun) who died in the death camp of Auschwitz in 1942. Although written for the nuns of her time it strikes us as dramatically contemporary.
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Ave Crux, Spes unica!
The world is in flames. The conflagration can also reach our house. But high above all flames towers the cross. They cannot consume it. It is the path from earth to heaven. it will lift one who embraces it in faith, love, and hope into the bosom of the Trinity.
The world is in flames. Are you impelled to put them out? Look at the cross. From the open heart gushes the blood of the Savior. This extinguishes the flames of hell. Make your heart free by the fulfillment of your vows; then the flood of divine love will be poured into your heart until it overflows and becomes fruitful to all the ends of the earth. Do you hear the groans of the wounded on the battlefields in the west and the east? You are not a physician and not a nurse and cannot bind up the wounds. You are enclosed in a cell and cannot get to then Do you hear the anguish of the dying? You would like to be a priest and comfort them. Does the lament of the widows and orphans distress you? You would like to be an angel of mercy and help them. Look at the Crucified.... Bound to him you are omnipresent as he is. You cannot help here or there like the physician the nurse, the priest. You can be at all fronts, wherever there is grief, in the power of the cross. Your compassionate love takes you everywhere, this love from the divine heart. Its precious blood is poured everywhere-soothing, healing saving.
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