Discernment, Mercy, 2 Popes

The journey of discerning God's will for me continues. I still feel the draw to contemplative life, but I question it at the same time. Why? For one thing, I won't know until I actually am able to live the life in some kind of trial/live-in experience. There's still much about this journey that I'm not clear on because I just don't have enough first hand information, and that takes time. I know I want to be a consecrated religious, a little spouse of Jesus. That's about all I know for sure. Carmelite? Love love love Carmelite spirituality. Cloister? Not so sure. Franciscan? Love love love Franciscan spirituality. Active apostolate? Not so sure. I'm starting to understand on some level that what I desire is balance: contemplative and active apostolates in fruitful harmony. 

"St. Francis Starry Night" by Sue Betanzos
See (and buy) more of this artist's work here:
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/sue-betanzos.html

And I feel that above and beyond all the processing and musing and wondering, Yeshua just wants me to lean on Him, alone. That's it. No thought process, musing or wondering necessary. He will lead me where I need to be, He will show me when I am ready. Setting aside my rampant intellectualization and over-thinking is a tough order, but it's what I'm called to do right now: dying to "false self," the part of me that tries to control, thinks it can, and freaks out when it can't. Be patient when I want to hit the gas. Oh, what a teacher our  Lord is!

I found this prayer this morning, the Prayer of Total Offering from St. Francis. It is lovely, succinct, simple (as befits Franciscan spirituality):

May the power of your love, O Lord,

fiery and sweet as honey, 

wean my heart from all that is under heaven,

so that I may die for love of your love,

you who were so good as to die 

for love of my love.

Amen.

On a related note, today is "Divine Mercy Sunday," which is a devotion to the loving, compassionate mercy of Jesus as directed through his Sacred Heart, poured out upon the world. This devotion was propagated by St. Faustina, to whom Jesus appeared and asked to make known this mercy with veneration of a specific image:

Notice the words at the bottom. 

Also today, we celebrate the canonizations of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII. Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council in 1962 to revitalize and renew our Catholic Church. You can find the documents from Vatican II here. Vatican II established many necessary reforms, among which were approving Mass in local languages, and asking religious orders (of sisters, nuns, monks, friars) to return to the vision and charism of their founding mothers and fathers. Pope John Paul II, among many blessings, gave us the Theology of the Body, which affirms human sexuality as a divinely blessed aspect of human existence, and he was a spiritual guide for his native Poland and the world through the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union. Not to be forgotten, it was JPII who formally instituted Divine Mercy Sunday, in response to St. Faustina's message from Jesus.

I more or less grew up with JPII, and I am fond of him, though I am aware that many consider him too conservative, accusing him of trying to reverse the course of reform that Vatican II started. I think the Holy Spirit is in charge, so I'm not too worried. Pope Francis has done a great thing this day, joining these two popes in history and acknowledging them each for their massive contributions to the growth of modern Catholicism, spirituality, and understanding of God's Love.