{"id":488,"date":"2017-03-21T00:23:30","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T07:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/?p=488"},"modified":"2017-03-22T18:28:52","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T01:28:52","slug":"consumed-in-grace-by-catherine-of-siena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/?p=488","title":{"rendered":"“Consumed in Grace” by Catherine of Siena"},"content":{"rendered":"
I first saw God when I was a child, \r\nsix years of age.\r\n The cheeks of the sun were pale before Him,\r\n and the earth acted as a shy\r\n girl, like me.\r\n\r\nDivine light entered my heart from His love\r\n that did never fully wane,\r\n\r\nthough indeed, dear, I can understand how a person's faith \r\n can at times flicker,\r\n\r\nfor what is the mind to do\r\n with something that becomes the mind's ruin:\r\n a God that consumes us\r\n in His grace.\r\n\r\nI have seen what you want;\r\n it is there,\r\n\r\na Beloved of infinite\r\n tenderness.<\/pre>\n
This is a poem we must read stanza by stanza. If you stop in the opening lines, you’ll notice the way she is using poetic imagery to praise the greatness of God and the way in which all things pale in their shyness before God.\u00a0 The blazing sun can’t compare to divine light, which consumes the speaker. It actually ruins her mind, but ironically, that is a wonderful thing!\u00a0 At the end the poem takes a turn to address someone, someone in want of something.\u00a0 Perhaps someone whose faith is flickering.\u00a0 The speaker offers reassurance with her testimony: what we seek is<\/em> there–a Beloved of infinite tenderness.<\/p>\n
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I first saw God when I was a child, six years of age. The cheeks of the sun were pale before Him, and the earth acted as a shy girl, like me. Divine light entered my heart from His love that did never fully wane, though indeed, dear, I can understand how a person’s faith … Continue reading “Consumed in Grace” by Catherine of Siena<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,2,40,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-lent","category-poems-for-contemplation","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":524,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}