Читать книгу The Reckless Way of Love - Dorothy Day - Страница 10

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Take Heart

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

PSALM 27:14

WITHOUT THE SACRAMENTS of the church, primarily the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper as it is sometimes called, I certainly do not think that I could go on. I do not always approach it from need, or with joy and thanksgiving. After thirty-eight years of almost daily communion, one can confess to a routine, but it is like a routine of taking daily food. But Jesus himself told us at that last supper, “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19). He didn’t say daily, of course. But he said, “as often as you drink this wine and eat this bread,” we would be doing it in memory of him (1 Cor. 11:25). And this morning I rejoiced to see those words in the Gospel of Saint Luke. He said, “How I have longed to eat this Passover with you before my death!” The old Douay version has it, “With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you, before I suffer” (Luke 22:15).

Desire, to me, always meant an intense craving, a longing, a yearning which was a joy in itself to experience.

DO WHAT COMES TO HAND. Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might. After all, God is with us. It shows too much conceit to trust to ourselves, to be discouraged at what we ourselves can accomplish. It is lacking in faith in God to be discouraged. After all, we are going to proceed with his help. We offer him what we are going to do. If he wishes it to prosper, it will. We must depend solely on him. Work as though everything depended on ourselves, and pray as though everything depended on God, as Saint Ignatius says. …

I suppose it is a grace not to be able to have time to take or derive satisfaction in the work we are doing. In what time I have, my impulse is to self-criticism and examination of conscience, and I am constantly humiliated at my own imperfections and at my halting progress. Perhaps I deceive myself here, too, and excuse my lack of recollection. But I do know how small I am and how little I can do and I beg You, Lord, to help me, for I cannot help myself.

IN A WAY your letter was very disquieting – you seemed so overcome by failure and defeat. You seem much under the influence of Péguy. I have been quoting that for years – “‘Where are the others?’ God will say” – and I do believe that we have to work for others. But we are sowing the seed and it is up to him to bring the increase. It is all in his hands, and we must keep ourselves in peace, first of all. That is where peace begins. He is our peace.

THIS MORNING the only gleam of consolation I had was that when God sends all these troubles and sufferings to the families, he is sending just what they need, to prune them down, so that they bear fruit. If I didn’t believe that, I’d be unhappy indeed. How he must love you to be so intent on sending what you need, spiritually. If all were going well and smoothly, it would be really dangerous.

TODAY THE ATMOSPHERE is very heavy. Rain threatens. So often one is overcome with a tragic sense of the meaninglessness of our lives – patience, patience, and the very word means suffering. Endurance, perseverance, sacrament of the present moment, the sacrament of duty. One must keep on reassuring oneself of these things. And repeat acts of faith. “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.” We are placed here; why? To know him and so love him, serve him by serving others, and so attain to eternal life and joy, understanding, etc.

WE KNOW how powerless we are, all of us, against the power of wealth and government and industry and science. The powers of this world are overwhelming. Yet it is hoping against hope and believing, in spite of “unbelief,” crying by prayer and by sacrifice, daily, small, constant sacrificing of one’s own comfort and cravings – these are the things that count.

And old as I am, I see how little I have done, how little I have accomplished along these lines.

ONE TIME I was traveling and far from home and lonely, and I awoke in the night almost on the verge of weeping with a sense of futility, of being unloved and unwanted. And suddenly the thought came to me of my importance as a daughter of God, daughter of a king, and I felt a sureness of God’s love and at the same time a conviction that one of the greatest injustices, if one can put it that way, which one can do to God is to distrust his love, not realize his love. God so loved me that he gave his only begotten son. “If a mother will forget her children, never will I forget thee.” Such tenderness. And with such complete ingratitude we forget the Father and his love!