It’s daytime and I’ve got the cold in my bones. And yet still there is a speck of warmth somewhere hiding within, cocooned. A speck of warmth biding its time, waiting, daring to break through the hard-set icy ground to the surface. I should be out there in training for my 40 days walking throughout Lent, but its icy, snowy and freezing cold. I long to return to my fresh crisp white bed linen; which has a call that no other call can fulfill. But the daytime and the crisp white bed linen don’t go together.
Here in the darkness, there is silence . . . and stillness . . . and presence . . . and it infuses me . . . and suspends me in God. But here in the morning there is to be another way, a way that needs carving out as if through blocks of ice, or sculpting so as to make a softness and a perfectness of sharp edges. I think of ‘footprints in the sand’ in a summery languid vain, and I am reassured that ‘footprints in the snow’ are of the same stirrings, but with the prettiest bitter-sweet intimacy of Winter’s kiss.
And then out of the frozenness comes a little melting; I just had one of those moments, where a coincidence or three, jumps out of life and says notice me! For anyone that reads my blog, you will know that this has happened before on more than one occasion, and no doubt mirrors similar incidences in your own lives. I am by every means (as recorded on my childhood reports) boringly average. However . . . I am a boringly average mags and not a boringly average someone else. Boringly average does not use a capital m for mags because she knows her place, all initials in the anagram of her name sit in equal measure side by side, supporting and distributing the weight of each ‘I call you by name’, to make all One, in a single syllable called mags. Therein lies the person named at birth. The mother. The person challenged to bear a name which brands me with its commitment. And above all else the person called to God and to Love. Made whole by a new name; the name of a Saint.
When I went on holiday in the summer-time, I was delighted and surprised to discover we were living for the week, virtually on the Saints-Way, an ancient 26 mile rural pathway through Cornwall. In the house there was no reference to Christianity at all apart from on the side in the kitchen where there sat two little Saintly plaques. These Saints gave a poignant ‘little miracle’ welcome to me. These Saints are my friends, St Francis and his tender nature whom I so Love, and whom so inspires me – with his open Love for St Clare. And I think the other one was St Phillip Niri, whose feast day it was at Pentecost, when I was received into the Church. If you recognise this Saint to be a different one please let me know, as I was absolutely mystified by the little miracle welcome, although a little confirmation might concrete it for me. I would not want to be inspired after all by a misconceived little miracle, and it may just be a new saint to discover. This cottage had much Love within it. God clearly presided here in the very nature and the very spirit pouring in through the windows and doors.
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On Saturday a special poignant and inspiring moment happened at university in connection with an assignment I had submitted, and in connection with the deeper conversation I had been having with my Maker. And then I connected with another blog in utter dubious alignment within the same coincidence, and just happened to mention a film which inspired me on the Saints. And then just now the conspiring human powers that be, that often dilute the faith in my faith, in their contriving to strengthen it, were suddenly all called into focus – I clicked on todays reading having been too cold and iced up to care a less; else not being bothered to make it to Mass in the neighbouring next-but-one village away.
The reading God decided was to speak to me here instead . . . just to reinforce the conversations and the coincidences!
Tuesday of week 2 of the year
First reading
Hebrews 6:10-20
God would not be so unjust as to forget all you have done, the love that you have for his name or the services you have done, and are still doing, for the saints. Our one desire is that every one of you should go on showing the same earnestness to the end, to the perfect fulfilment of our hopes, never growing careless, but imitating those who have the faith and the perseverance to inherit the promises.
When God made the promise to Abraham, he swore by his own self, since it was impossible for him to swear by anyone greater: I will shower blessings on you and give you many descendants.
Those Saints have got me good and proper!
mags – Mary Apostle of Gods Soul.
magsmuse 