Jesus entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, ‘He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.’ And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, ‘Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.

 

For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave does it.’ When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, ‘I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.’ When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

 

It was a joy to me, God, in the midst of the struggle, to feel that in developing myself I was increasing the hold that you have upon  me; it was a joy to me, too, under the inward thrust of life or amid the favourable play of events, to abandon myself to your providence. Now that I have found the joy of utilising all forms of growth to make you, or to let you, grow in me, grant that I may willingly consent to this last phase of communion in the course of which I shall possess you by diminishing in you. 

 

After having perceived you as he who is a greater than myself  grant, when my hour comes, that I may recognise you under the species of each alien or hostile force that seems bent upon destroying or uprooting me. When the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more when they touch my mind); when the illness that is to diminish me or carry me off strikes from without or is born within me; when the painful moment comes in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that I am ill or growing old; and above all at that last  moment when I feel I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive within the hands of the great unknown forces that have formed me; in all those dark moments, God, grant that I may understand that it is you (provided only my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fibres of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within yourself. 

 

The more deeply and incurably the evil is encrusted in my flesh, the more it will be you that I am harbouring— you as a loving, active principle of purification and detachment. The more the future opens before me like some dizzy abyss or dark tunnel, the more confident I may be — if I venture forward on the strength of your word — of losing  myself and surrendering myself in you, of being assimilated by your body, Jesus. 

 

Thou are the irresistible and vivifying force, Lord, and because  yours is the energy, because, of the two of us, you are infinitely  the stronger, it is on you that falls the part of consuming me in the  union that should weld us together. Vouchsafe, therefore, something more precious still than the grace for which all the faithful pray. It is not enough that I should die while communicating.  Teach me to treat my death as an act of communion. 

 

 

 

An empty canvas waits

before the Painter

It waits to be the painting

it must be

Unto this end it's rightfully

been created

To reflect rightfully what

the Painter sees

 

A beauty that will surely find

its life within its dying

So another might be born again

In this constant death a

constant beauty is created

Within a constant love that never ends

 

Jesus is the Master Painter

And the Holy Spirit is the Master's Brush

To be dipped in the colors

That portray a Father's love

That the Master's painting might be born of us

That the canvas of our life might know the Master's touch

To portray the beauty of the Master's Brush

 

So an empty canvas waits before the Painter

An empty canvas destined to be hung

Within the gallery once it has been created

Will the canvas bear the beauty of the Son?