Bridegroom in Blood

Exodus 4: 18-31
Moses was on his way back to Egypt to see how his Jewish people were faring. They no longer saw themselves as the chosen people, but as chain-gang slaves under the Pharaoh. At a lodging place, that the Lord met him and wanted to kill him. Then Zipporah his wife took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet; and she said: Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me, because of the circumcision. Circumcision was the male Sign of the Covenant. The wife it would appear from this text was considered a Bride in Covenant Blood.

Hosea 2:17-19:
I will make for you a covenant....and I will betroth you to me for ever...in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.
Ezek. 16:8
I plighted my troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine

Marriage covenant gives Security!
Beauty of seeing a loving couple at Mass together joined together in the Body and Blood of Jesus. Marriage is not just an image of the Covenant, but an actual embodiment of it. Where it flourishes others can rest-- children, even visitors to the home. When one is in a loving union with another, there is harmony in the heart and an ambience of peace and contentment that enables one to settle in to the core and cavern of the soul. I overheard one woman say that while she was sitting at her work-desk, suddenly she was enlightened to as to the inner happiness and contentment she drew from her husband.

Spouses need quality/prime time on their own. When the little children are asleep in bed... and mini-breaks for resting alone. Even the children benefit from this. Loving spouses hold their family in their own embrace. They are enfolded in their love. My own memory is that the times I felt most secure was when my parents were close and content. When they were divided, we too felt divided and depressed.

Bridegroom/Bride relationship in God’s covenant
So indeed, when we are deeply drawn into the communion with the Lord, so surely are those who are of God’s family and are entrusted to our care. The contemplative life, far from being selfish or closed in on itself is an open circle enfolding and embracing all people and all creation. When Lover and Beloved are at one, there is a creative energy between them, that brings forth new life. The union of male and female in marriage finds its fullest expression within the context of God’s covenant relationship with his people.


The Lover and the Beloved find nourishment for their souls in the Song of Solomon. 7:10-12. I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me. Come my beloved, let us go forth into the fields and lodge in the villages; let us go early to my vineyards. . . . There I will give you my love.

When Jeremiah prophesied of the institution of the New Covenant, he said, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt: which My covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them. This again supposes that under the terms of the old covenant, Israel were related to the Lord as a wife to an husband.
The charge laid against Israel, however, is that they proved unfaithful to their marriage vow.

Hosea experienced the heartbreak of desertion, and betrayal from his unfaithful wife Gomer . He heard the awful words of the Lord: You are not my people and I will not be your God. The adultery of his wife was an image of the betrayal of God by his people Israel. The woman Hosea loved was to be sold in the slave market. The brokenhearted prophet didn't know what to do. And God said. Hosea, do you love this woman in spite of all that she has done to you? Then go show your love for her in the same way that I love the nation Israel." In the end his ears would hear the consoling words of the Lord to this same people: Behold I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.
I was reminded of all this, sitting before an open fire. There was central heating in the house and it certainly warmed the room and comforted our bones. But when someone threw a large oil-soaked fire-log on the open fire, a blaze of glory filled the room and made our faces glow and our hearts to be as it were on fire too. Love human and divine is like this. St John of he Cross in his work The Living Flame speaks of the Bridegroom or of the Beloved 550 times using such expressions for Christ as Light of the eyes, Lily of the valley, Sweet Nightingale!

Commenting on the Song of Songs, he says: A little of this pure love is more precious to God, more precious to the soul, and of more benefit for the Church, even though it seems to be doing nothing, than all those other works together. He writes: Enter within your heart and work in the presence of your Bridegroom, who is always present loving you. Even when John talks of nada nada, nothing nothing, it is never an empty space he envisions, but a an opening for an infilling with the presence of the Bridegroom.

In a modern writing Love Before my Face: one reads the following inspired message from Jesus: I will divinise natural love between persons who seek to love through my Divine Humanity. Celibates depending on my Divine Humanity will receive support whereby they may love humanly while remaining faithful to me. They will find freedom to show great affection. Trust in me, will carry them through difficulties.

By loving each other while placing all their trust in me, the love and gratitude of their hearts for me will be deepened. I will enter into your flesh and chasten it and make it sweet to love. Love without expression, if expression can help or heal another, is sterile. I have called you to love, and thus to love each other. If you do not first find me, you will be unable to love, with the love that profits for eternal life. I will be in your loving and you will find it sweet to love. If I am sought through human loving. If I am understood and accepted as the author, giver and source of love, then my support, my tenderness and my power will give to those who love, an understanding of the true meaning of love and of human life.
True love is not confined to marriage. Single celibate persons are called to this: as evidenced by the Book devoted to the love between Jordan of Saxony and the nun Blessed Diana entitled, Love among the Saints. It must be understood that while we speak of love human and divine and of the many-splendoured range of love, spousal love, love between parents and children, love of country, and so on, in the end there is only one Love for it all finds its source and reaches it summit in the Trinitarian God who is Love itself.

Picture above: The Marriage Feast of Cana, which is much more than a matter of providing wine for the immediate occasion, but is a foreshadowing of the overflowing of the wine and milk and honey of the New Covenant./BlogWebSingle.doc

Email: hartygabriel@yahoo.co.uk

Blog: http://blogrosary.blogspot.com/

Humility and the Legion of Mary

George Bernard Shaw: The churches must learn humility as well as teach it. How relevant to our times! Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues.

Christ recommended it above all, for only when humility exists does God bestow his favours. Mary says, in the "Magnificat," that in her God has shown might in his arm, that is, he has exerted in her his very omnipotence.

But how could Mary be a model of humility, considering that her treasury of perfections was altogether immeasurable - as Thomas Aquinas said: touching the very borders of infinity? She was aware that she was more perfectly redeemed than any other. Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Everything is God's free gift to the soul: his to increase, diminish, or withdraw, just as he alone gave it. Humility is like the force of gravity which keeps the heavenly bodies in their proper orbit and in sweet harmony. Humility is the grace -force which enables us to move surely in the grand plan of the Creator. Thomas Merton said: Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.

The Legion's battle begins in the heart of the individual legionary. Each one wages the battle with himself, determinedly conquering the spirit of pride and self. This struggle with the root of evil within one, this constant striving after purity of intention, is the battle of a lifetime. Reliance upon one's own efforts makes for failure. Of what use are his own muscles to one struggling in a quicksand? A firm support is necessary. Lean upon her with complete trust. She will not fail you, for she is deeply rooted in that humility which is vital to you. In the faithful practice of the spirit of dependence upon her will be found a way of humility - what St. Louis-Marie de Montfort terms "a little-known secret of grace, enabling us quickly and with but little effort to empty ourselves of self, fill ourselves with God, and become perfect."

The humble Virgin's heel crushes the serpent of self, with its many heads: of
Self-promotion, self-seeking; self-sufficiency and self-conceit; The Legionary distrusts the promptings of his own inclinations and and leans on the Lord and listens intently to the whisperings of grace.

God delights to work on nothing; from that deep foundation it is that he raises the creations of his power. We should be full of zeal for God's glory, and at the same time convinced of our personal incapacity to promote it. God does not call the able, he enables those whom he calls.

Email: hartygabriel@yahoo.co.uk Blog: http://blogrosary.blogspot.com/

My Peculiar People

The two elements that form God’s Covenant with his people are his His Promise to carry them on Eagle’s wings and to give them a home-- a Promised Land.

The two pillars that uphold the covenant are Mercy and Fidelity, in the Hebrew they are known as Hesed and Emet....
In our Gaelic language they are beautifully summed up in one word: Buangra, which means steadfast love. All that is mine is yours. Not just exchange of goods but a giving of persons. Two parties come together to become one. They form a Coalition, a Grand Alliance.

My Peculiar People
Deut 7:6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God: the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love upon you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples; but it is because the Lord loves you”.

If you look at the King James version you will see the last phrase God’s own people is given as God’s peculiar people. The word has altered its meaning since Elizabethan times. The Greek and the Hebrew word which means special possession. You are God’s special possession – God’s precious possession. It defines all that is positive in a person’s qualities, all that is most valued and precious.

The Queen’s peculiars: Certain offices and honours that she might personally confer on certain Cathedral clerics. Or her own personal jewellery over and above the crown Jewels of thr realm.
A nuns peculiars: While she might bring a dowry-- a sum of money for her upkeep in the convent, she could well have a gold watch or bracelet given as a family heirloom. These would be considered her peculiar possessions. Whatever might happen to the dowry if she left, one thing was certain that she would be handed back her peculiars.
Come hell or high water, nothing was going to separate God from his crown jewels, his chosen people- which is you and me to-day. Only we have to stand by the covenant.

When women go shopping!
As distinct from a contract, covenant places the emphasis on the person rather than on the goods. I’ve noticed this in the way women shop rather than the way most men seem to. When men go out shopping with women, you’ll often find them sitting around waiting and wondering when and where its all going to end. Personally I find it kind of venture into the Aladdin’s cave that women seem to have in their soul’s when they step into a Superstore. When I accompany my friend into Tesco, I never cease to wonder at all the things she can stock up in her trolley, considering that she lives and eats or her own. At seventy she is still shopping for her grown up sons and daughters as if they were at home. It’s all and expression of her own covenant with her family.

The story of Jonathan giving his princely cloak to his friend David by way of a sign of the covenant they were cutting with each other is a perfect example of the same thing. In 1 SAMUEL 18-20 Jonathan takes off his princely cloak and gives it to David. This symbolised the merciful protection of the king’s son. David would feel protected and cherished in the warmth and splendour of the Prince’s cloak. When people would see David so dressed they would respect him and know that he had been singled out for honour by the authorities. He would walk with confidence not only through the land beneath his feet but in the inner land of his spirit. So we clothed in the robe of Divine mercy the Buangra De, find rest and renewal as we meditate on the wonder of our being.

Much of my distinction between goods and person has been sparked off by a gift I was given this Christmas by a lady in this John Main meditation group-- the jacket that I’m wearing just now. It’s a bit like Jonathan and David, a symbolic exchange of robe. First reaction was, Not for me. I’d be Fr. Trendy in that! Thought I’d bring it up to my Grandmother friend for one of the children or grandchildren. As it was a bit bulky and warm, the simplest way to carry it was to slip it on under my overcoat. I hadn’t reckoned with the Winter that was looming. To make a long story short, I have never had it off since putting it on. And the grandchildren tell me that I look cool in it. I now know that I am one of my friend's peculiar people. The incident has promote me to write these lines.

She walked through the shops
with things on her mind
and persons in her soul:
toys for the boys and tops for the girls
and special things for her spouse.
She tussled with the toys and tops and things
while she dreamed of friends and faces.

Then in between the reels and the rails
she touched this fleece and sensed its sweetness--
and then my face slipped between her fingers
and her heart said: “it will warm his bones
and get him through the Winter."

Arise she said, for Winter is over and gone.
Not outside my dear, I said,
When swiftly came her sure reply:
Within the warmth of Buangra De, it is.

Inner Land Prayer

I come to you my Lord, that you may reign over me.
I claim the promise that you would carry me to yourself on eagle's wings
I come as one of your chosen people, your own possession.
I bring you Lord, the barren land of my being,
so that its desert may blossom like the rose.
as you drench it in the torrent of your love.
I, yield to you the inner land of my being,
that you may clear it of all that would hinder your sacred covenant.
I lay before you the closed and cluttered country of my heart
that you may break through and set me free to
walk with head held high, through the land of promise
to which you call me.
Enlighten the eye of my mind
so that I may see what needs to be set right
in the inner city where you are to reign.
Give me the sword of the Spirit
that I may set forth in high adventure
to claim nry land for your Lordship.
Cut your covenant with me
and seal it with your precious blood.
Share with me the wine,
the milk and the honey which flow in the new creation.
Give me to drink
of the Eucharistic cup of the new and everlasting covenant.
Call me to your banqueting table
and clothe me as one of your household
in the royal robe of your mercv.
May you find your delight in us, O Lord,
and give us the land.

On Eagle's wings

Exodus 19: 4' You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession My Peculiar people among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

The Eagle in Isaiah 40:31 takes advantage of air currents to fly with little or no effort. The eagle does not escape the strong winds and the storms. It simply uses them to lift itself higher. When the storms of life come upon us, we can rise above them by setting our souls toward God allowing his mercy an faithfulness to lift us above them. It is not the burdens of life that weigh us down, it is how we entrust them to the what Deuteronomy 33:27 calls the everlasting arms beneath. The eternal God is your refuge,and underneath are the everlasting arms." We must wait on the Lord, until we catch the wind of the Spirit. Eagle believers are those who seek to find out where God is going, and then go with Him. They don’t sense fighting against the wind currents. They find out what God's doing and enter into it.

When the eagle is teaching its young to fly, it pushes the young chick out of the nest and lets it flab and flop for a while, but then swoops down and picks the struggling eaglet on its own strong safe wings. Deuteronomy 1:29-31 "The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did ... in the desert. He carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place."

And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint." We are to run to the one in distress and not to faint or forget.

Scott Hahn subtitles his book on the Covenant: The Father who never forgets his promises. He tells of an Armenian father who told his son, Armond, “No matter what happens, I’ always be there for you.” In 1989 there was an earthquake in that country that in four minutes left 30,000 dead. The father thought immediately of his son at school and running through the streets he made for the class-room where he knew his son would be. He started digging through the rubble with his bare hands, even as a bystander muttered “Forget it , the’re all dead in there.” But this man could not forget or forsake his son. So he kept on digging and scraping for 36 hours. At last from under a wallboard, he heard a groan and he called, “Armand” and a shaky voice cried: “Papa!” When the same father had dragged out 14 more still alive, Armand hailed his classmates “See I told you, my Father wouldn’t forget us.”

The word "covenant" means "come together", as found in such words as "convention" and "communion" A covenant is a solemn agreement, whereby not only goods are exchanged but there is a commitment of persons to each other. Note the two elements in marriage. It is a contract—“This gold and silver, I thee give and with all my worldly goods, I thee endow.” But more so, there is the giving of Bride and the Bridegroom to each other. “With this body, I thee worship…” That is the covenant of marriage which binds husband and wife to each other until death do them part. Your heart and mine are one! This is what the Lord is saying to us and this too is our response to his Covenant.

The contract proposed to the Jewish people is that they would be given a land to live in and Promised Land. The Covenant promise is that they would be a Chosen people. But the contract was not to inherit a mere patch of physical territory. It was to to take possession of an inner land, to discover for themselves a land of heart’s desire,--- a place of settlement.

We all have our personal land which flows with the wine and milk and honey of the spirit. We are invited to discover that inner land where we can find rest. We must not allow strange gods to take over this sacred space. We know the hurt that comes from having forces of occupation parading and prowling over one’s native land. But more importantly there is an inner land that must not be violated or trampled on. This is were the prayer of stillness and silence as exercised in this group does its saving work.

In Bible terms we speak of cutting a covenant where blood flows and where the blood of the parties are mingled and they become a family of Blood Brothers and Sisters. Blood is thicker than water! Blood brother can refer to one of two things: two males related by birth, or two or more men not related by birth who have formed a union and sworn loyalty to each other. This is usually done in a ceremony, known as a blood oath, where the blood of each man is mingled together. The process usually provides a participant with a heightened symbolic sense of attachment with another participant.

Stanley the New York Reporter in his search for the missioner, Livingstone, tells of his trek through the African jungles. Stanley was confronted by a warlike tribe and was too weak to struggle with them. He was advised to enter into a covenant with them and was told that this would mean drinking each other’s blood. While he did not relish the idea, it was explained to him that is he did so, their lives would be one and everything that the Tribal chief had would be his if he needed it. The only thing that would be asked of him was to hand over the white milk goat.

The New York reporter was in such poor health that the only thing he could stomach was goat’s milk. This would be the end of him. But he was assured that this was merely symbolic of what Stanley himself could offer and there was no intention of withholding the milk from him. In return the Chieftain handed over an ornate seven foot tall spear. The Chieftain announced to his people, “Come trade with Stanley for we are blood brothers.” It was only later that he understood the significance of that spear for as soon as others saw the Tribal chief’s weapon they would fall over themselves to heap gifts son Stanley. They knew that the two had cut a covenant and that they could work together in confidence and fidelity.

The Hebrew Tradition associates two qualities with the idea of Covenant: They are Mercy and Fidelity. The Biblical terms are Hesed and Emet. These are the two binding forces that hold the Covenant in place. The Bible treats them as if they were Personal forces, like nouns standing up on their own rather than mere descriptive adjectives.

Let us pray that in the hour of need we may experience that Hesed and emet Jahweh--the merciful and never forgetting fidelity of our God.
But if we are to enjoy the Covenant protection in our lives, we are called to become eagles ourselves-- showing our brothers and sisters them the same mercy and faithfulness and carrying them in the palms of our hands.

In Covenant with Mary

Mark Twain tells of the day a certain King and the Queen were bringing their new little Prince home from the royal hospital. On the way home their carriage collided with a poor man’s cart. In the humble vehicle the poor man was bringing his wife and new baby home from the midwife's house. In the confusion of the moment, the two couples picked up the wrong babies by mistake and the little Prince went home to be raised by the pauper and his wife.

As the baby grew into childhood, he was forced to go into the streets and beg for food. However, unknown to him the very streets he begged on, belonged to him because they were the property of his true father and mother. Day after day out he would go to the palace and looking through the iron fence at the little boy playing there and he would say to himself, "If only I were a Prince." Of course, he was the Prince! But he was not aware of it.

He lived his whole life in poverty because he didn't know who he really was since he didn't know who his mother was. How true this is of many Christians. They have never taken time to find out to whom they belong. They have never realized who their real mother is. Ever since the day we were born spiritually, we became sons and daughters of the God and his own Mother Mary.

We are heirs to a royal throne. How sad to think we go through self–imposed spiritual poverty and cheat ourselves out of the riches of God's marvellous grace. We must learn to live no longer from the meagre ration of self, but out of the infinite supply of the King and Queen of Heaven.

The Holy Spirit came upon Mary and made her his Bride. She has been a faithful Bride and Mother and together they continue to bring forth Christ—that is the Whole Christ—the Mystical Body. Without that co-operation, there would nothing Christian to our being. Our task is to recognise and accept this Divine arrangement, to surrender to it.

True Devotion to Mary means entering into a Contract and making Covenant with her. A Contract is an exchange of goods as we say: All I have is yours. A Covenant is an exchange of Persons as we say: All I am is yours. It is like a marriage which is not only a giving of gold and silver, but a mutual giving of persons to each other.

By reason of the contract and the covenant we have entered into, Mary’s answer is: “Beloved, I am all yours and all I have is yours..”

Rosary reply

Dear Sister,

Your experience with the Rosary, prompts me to jot down a few thoughts that have been revolving in my head for some years. Ever since hearing the story of Fatima, the Rosary has been my life-line. For more than sixty years I have prayed the Rosary as many as three times a day. However I have never become obsessive about it. If I’m tired or unwell, I am content to simply rest in the Lord. I never liked the idea: You must. That kind of thing tends to become musty!

The late Fr.Conleth Kearns whose wisdom we all treasure, told me about St. Catherine of Siena. When moved to do so, she would drop her Paternoster beads and just rest in the Spirit. When the time came she would resume the bidding of her beads. I felt welcome to the club, as indeed I welcome you likewise.

Once when researching the history of the Rosary, in San Clemente, I came across an ancient and rare book entitled: Le Triple Rosaire, where the author, Pere Bernard of Toulouse referred to the three stages of attention in prayer:
To the words,

to the thoughts and

to the presence or the person.

Something of the kind happens in ordinary conversation: When we are with strangers, words seem necessary and we are careful about how we choose them. With friends or colleagues we exchange thoughts of business or pleasure. But with the Beloved our heart, it is enough to sit in silence. Being totally present to each other is what matters.

On visiting the Carmel where Sr. Elizabeth of the Trinity lived, I was told by some of her community, that the saint could not cope with the Rosary, as it did not sit well with her contemplative spirit. I believe that the Little Flower also found it a difficult prayer to manage. So, dear Sr. you are indeed in high company! Only,-- I would invite you to take the pressure off. It is not that you can’t think or concentrate or even meditate. It is that you are gone beyond those stages. Listen to Pere Bernard: "When summoned to the royal court, do not dally along the corridors and antechambers looking at pictures of King, but walk calmly on into his presence."

Much of this wisdom has come back to me, since getting involved with the John Main meditation Group here in Tallaght. Here, they instruct us to put aside all words, all images, all thoughts—even holy ones. We are to just sit still and silently interiorly recite the prayer word.

This enlightenment came to me at the time I was taken off the Apostolate of the Rosary which had filled out over fifty years of my life. I was feeling bereft and bereaved, as indeed many must feel at a time of upheaval in life. I felt as if on the scrap-heap. As Bernadette of Lourdes remarked when the visions were over and she found herself in Nevers, it was “as if she were a broom now finished with and left behind the door.”

I found it hard to concentrate and could not get beyond the first words of the Our Father:
Thy name, thy kingdom, thy will. My own name mattered no more.My kingdom was over. My will had been thwarted. That is how it was, and perhaps how it was meant to be for so that I might have my own dark night experience. I could appreciate the lot of so many who were undergoing change or becoming redundant. The very pronoun— Thy was all I could manage and yet it was all that mattered now. For the past six years, it has become my prayer word, my mantra!

I have rediscovered the Rosary, as Pere Bernard taught it. I take up the beads each morning and pray the first Joyful mystery, slowly and almost silently, leaving myself open to the Lord’s Annunciation for this day. I do indeed say the Our Father and the ten Hail Marys, but they take a long time. All the while I linger in love over those words that are now engraved in my heart: Thy name, Thy kingdom, Thy will. I never venture out without my beads—heaven and the history of my heart locked together in my pocket. When the time is right, I pray the other mysteries. But deep down there is only one mystery -- the mystery of the Divine presence.

Looking again to the John Main experience, I observe that following the example of their mentor, there is usually a teaching at the beginning of each session, when direction is given. At the end of the formal instruction, one is told to put even these sacred thoughts aside and enter into the apophatic stillness. If one takes this model on board, it would seem that in the Rosary, it might be wise, to at first pause and ponder the particular mystery of the Divine Humanity. Then pick up the beads and use the vocal prayers as a kind mantra, while resting in the void and not trying to think of the detail of mystery being celebrated. Certainly it is not so much a thinking in the head as a lingering in the heart.

In many of the Eastern forms of prayer, meditation is accompanied with the use of beads. For myself, when I meditate morning and evening as suggested by John Main, I hold the beads in my hand or around the neck. The very sense of touch gives an added dimension of presence to the person. It is something to hold on to, and in the full Christian sense, it is someone to hold on to.

Dear Sr. I hope I have not wearied you with all that I have set down here. Those who like to get prayers said, who in a sense have the lust for getting finished are in one camp and those who want just to linger in love are in another. It is like the distinction between those who go in for spiritual exercise and those who simply opt to sit in the sun and get well. There are the two spiritualities and perhaps we need a dose of both medicines.

I have enclosed the Brochure of Retreats in Tallaght, as Fr. Donagh O’Shea, the Director has invited me to conduct a Summer Retreat around the ideas floated to you in this letter. If you can help out with any of your own insights they will be most welcome. It is your
query that has already prompted me to set something on paper.