TO SCATTER FLOWERS

To Scatter Flowers

O Jesus! O my Love! each eve I come to fling

My springtide roses sweet before Thy Cross divine;

By their plucked petals fair, my hands so gladly bring,

I long to dry Thine every tear!

To scatter flowers!—that means each sacrifice:

My lightest sighs and pains, my heaviest, saddest hours,

My hopes, my joys, my prayers—I will not count the price—

Behold my flowers!

With deep untold delight Thy beauty fills my soul,

Would I might light this love in hearts of all who live!

For this, my fairest flowers, all things in my control,

How fondly, gladly would I give!

To scatter flowers!—behold my chosen sword

For saving sinners’ souls and filling Heaven’s bowers:

The victory is mine—yea, I disarm Thee, Lord,

With these my flowers!

The petals in their flight caress Thy Holy Face;

They tell Thee that my heart is Thine, and Thine alone.

Thou knowest what these leaves are saying in my place:

On me Thou smilest from Thy Throne.

To scatter flowers!—that means, to speak of Thee—

My only pleasure here, where tears fill all the hours;

But soon, with Angel Hosts, my spirit shall be free

To scatter flowers.

June 28, 1896.

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http://www.ccel.org/ccel/therese/autobio.xxxii.iv.html

From: ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

THE STORY OF A SOUL (L’HISTOIRE D’UNE ÂME):
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

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The Wonderful Cross

I found this video on a anti emerging site. Funny as Chris Tomlin hangs with David Crowder… but praise God that even the music from emerging folk are hitting the hearts of those who hate the emerging church.

Be blessed,
iggy

The Wonderful Cross

I found this video on a anti emerging site. Funny as Chris Tomlin hangs with David Crowder… but praise God that even the music from emerging folk are hitting the hearts of those who hate the emerging church.

Be blessed,
iggy

The mystic ladder of Divine love, according to Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Step six

The mystic ladder of Divine love, according to Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Step six

ON the sixth step the soul runs swiftly to God and touches Him again and again; and it runs without fainting by reason of its hope. For here the love that has made it strong makes it to fly swiftly. Of this step the prophet Isaias speaks thus: ’ The saints that hope in God shall renew their strength; they shall take wings as the eagle; they shall fly and shall not faint,’Isaias xl, 31.
as they did at the fifth step. To this step likewise alludes that verse of the Psalm: ’ As the hart desires the waters, my soul desires Thee, O God.’Psalm xli, 2 [A.V., xlii, 1].

For the hart, in its thirst, runs to the waters with great swiftness. The cause of this swiftness in love which the soul has on this step is that its charity is greatly enlarged within it, since the soul is here almost wholly purified, as is said likewise in the Psalm, namely: Sine iniquitate cucurri.Psalm lviii, 5 [A.V., lix, 4].

And in another Psalm: ‘I ran the way of Thy commandments when Thou didst enlarge my heart’;Psalm cxviii, 32 [A.V., cxix, 32].

and thus from this sixth step the soul at once mounts to the seventh, which is that which follows.

The mystic ladder of Divine love, according to Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Step six

The mystic ladder of Divine love, according to Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Step six

ON the sixth step the soul runs swiftly to God and touches Him again and again; and it runs without fainting by reason of its hope. For here the love that has made it strong makes it to fly swiftly. Of this step the prophet Isaias speaks thus: ’ The saints that hope in God shall renew their strength; they shall take wings as the eagle; they shall fly and shall not faint,’Isaias xl, 31.
as they did at the fifth step. To this step likewise alludes that verse of the Psalm: ’ As the hart desires the waters, my soul desires Thee, O God.’Psalm xli, 2 [A.V., xlii, 1].

For the hart, in its thirst, runs to the waters with great swiftness. The cause of this swiftness in love which the soul has on this step is that its charity is greatly enlarged within it, since the soul is here almost wholly purified, as is said likewise in the Psalm, namely: Sine iniquitate cucurri.Psalm lviii, 5 [A.V., lix, 4].

And in another Psalm: ‘I ran the way of Thy commandments when Thou didst enlarge my heart’;Psalm cxviii, 32 [A.V., cxix, 32].

and thus from this sixth step the soul at once mounts to the seventh, which is that which follows.

The mystic ladder of Divine love, according to Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Step Six

Wherein are treated the other five steps of love.

ON the sixth step the soul runs swiftly to God and touches Him again and again; and it runs without fainting by reason of its hope. For here the love that has made it strong makes it to fly swiftly. Of this step the prophet Isaias speaks thus: ’ The saints that hope in God shall renew their strength; they shall take wings as the eagle; they shall fly and shall not faint,.as they did at the fifth step. To this step likewise alludes that verse of the Psalm: ’ As the hart desires the waters, my soul desires Thee, O God.’

For the hart, in its thirst, runs to the waters with great swiftness. The cause of this swiftness in love which the soul has on this step is that its charity is greatly enlarged within it, since the soul is here almost wholly purified, as is said likewise in the Psalm, namely: Sine iniquitate cucurri.
And in another Psalm: ‘I ran the way of Thy commandments when Thou didst enlarge my heart’;and thus from this sixth step the soul at once mounts to the seventh, which is that which follows.

The mystic ladder of Divine love, according to Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Step Six

Wherein are treated the other five steps of love.

ON the sixth step the soul runs swiftly to God and touches Him again and again; and it runs without fainting by reason of its hope. For here the love that has made it strong makes it to fly swiftly. Of this step the prophet Isaias speaks thus: ’ The saints that hope in God shall renew their strength; they shall take wings as the eagle; they shall fly and shall not faint,.as they did at the fifth step. To this step likewise alludes that verse of the Psalm: ’ As the hart desires the waters, my soul desires Thee, O God.’

For the hart, in its thirst, runs to the waters with great swiftness. The cause of this swiftness in love which the soul has on this step is that its charity is greatly enlarged within it, since the soul is here almost wholly purified, as is said likewise in the Psalm, namely: Sine iniquitate cucurri.
And in another Psalm: ‘I ran the way of Thy commandments when Thou didst enlarge my heart’;and thus from this sixth step the soul at once mounts to the seventh, which is that which follows.

The mystic ladder of Divine love, according to Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Step five

5. The fifth step of this ladder of love makes the soul to desire and long for God impatiently. On this step the vehemence of the lover to comprehend the Beloved and be united with Him is such that every delay, however brief, becomes very long, wearisome and oppressive to it, and it continually believes itself to be finding the Beloved. And when it sees its desire frustrated (which is at almost every moment), it swoons away with its yearning, as says the Psalmist, speaking from this step, in these words: ‘My soul longs and faints for the dwellings of the Lord.’

On this step the lover must needs see that which he loves, or die; at this step was Rachel, when, for the great longing that she had for children, she said to Jacob, her spouse: ‘Give me children, else shall I die.’

Here men suffer hunger like dogs and go about and surround the city of God. On this step, which is one of hunger,[Lit., ‘On this hungering step.’]

the soul is nourished upon love; for, even as is its hunger, so is its abundance; so that it rises hence to the sixth step, producing the effects which follow.

From CHAPTER XIX of Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross

The mystic ladder of Divine love, according to Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Step five

5. The fifth step of this ladder of love makes the soul to desire and long for God impatiently. On this step the vehemence of the lover to comprehend the Beloved and be united with Him is such that every delay, however brief, becomes very long, wearisome and oppressive to it, and it continually believes itself to be finding the Beloved. And when it sees its desire frustrated (which is at almost every moment), it swoons away with its yearning, as says the Psalmist, speaking from this step, in these words: ‘My soul longs and faints for the dwellings of the Lord.’

On this step the lover must needs see that which he loves, or die; at this step was Rachel, when, for the great longing that she had for children, she said to Jacob, her spouse: ‘Give me children, else shall I die.’

Here men suffer hunger like dogs and go about and surround the city of God. On this step, which is one of hunger,[Lit., ‘On this hungering step.’]

the soul is nourished upon love; for, even as is its hunger, so is its abundance; so that it rises hence to the sixth step, producing the effects which follow.

From CHAPTER XIX of Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross

The mystic ladder of Divine love, according to Saint Bernard and Saint Thomas Step Four

The fourth step of this ladder of love is that whereby there is caused in the soul an habitual suffering because of the Beloved, yet without weariness. For, as Saint Augustine says, love makes all things that are great, grievous and burdensome to be almost naught. From this step the Bride was speaking when, desiring to attain to the last step, she said to the Spouse: ’set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love—that is, the act and work of love—is strong as death, and emulation and importunity last as long as hell. The spirit here has so much strength that it has subjected the flesh and takes as little account of it as does the tree of one of its leaves. In no way does the soul here seek its own consolation or pleasure, either in God, or in aught else, nor does it desire or seek to pray to God for favours, for it sees clearly that it has already received enough of these, and all its anxiety is set upon the manner wherein it will be able to do something that is pleasing to God and to render Him some service such as He merits and in return for what it has received from Him, although it be greatly to its cost. The soul says in its heart and spirit: Ah, my God and Lord! How many are there that go to seek in Thee their own consolation and pleasure, and desire Thee to grant them favours and gifts; but those who long to do Thee pleasure and to give Thee something at their cost, setting their own interests last, are very few. The failure, my God, is not in Thy unwillingness to grant us new favours, but in our neglect to use those that we have received in Thy service alone, in order to constrain Thee to grant them to us continually. Exceeding lofty is this step of love; for, as the soul goes ever after God with love so true, imbued with the spirit of suffering for His sake, His Majesty oftentimes and quite habitually grants it joy, and visits it sweetly and delectably in the spirit; for the boundless love of Christ, the Word, cannot suffer the afflictions of His lover without succouring him. This He affirmed through Jeremias, saying: ‘I have remembered thee, pitying thy youth and tenderness, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness. Speaking spiritually, this denotes the detachment which the soul now has interiorly from every creature, so that it rests not and nowhere finds quietness. This fourth step enkindles the soul and makes it to burn in such desire for God that it causes it to mount to the fifth, which is that which follows.