This is all of joy

He is as zephyred winds upon the soul,

They said,

And cloudless cloister skies

Yawn over the galeless haven of the heart.

 

Strange, no one said His love would be

A vague unrest in all my deepest peace…

 

They spoke with sighs of flowery cloister ways

And of His smile

Like satin songs of evening.

 

But not a word was ever said of how

His gentle eyes would flog away repose,

And no one mentioned how His voice would thunder

Down my cool-scented caverns of compromise.

 

My hands, according to their counsel sheltered

For quiet prayer, they never told would bleed

With steep ascents’ crag-clinging, and the feet

They set to flower-bordered ways

They never said would know

Of black rocks’ tearing, tortuous paths

Among forbidden trees.

 

No, no one even hinted at the swords of His demand

That part the flesh from bone and leave the heart

Riven with a wild and white desire.

And no one knows except he once has heard

That loud, imperious call in his own heart

And left all padded satisfaction for the climb

That knows no peak. But this is all of joy.

 

-Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C.

 

I love this poem. It speaks of a faith that is past the skin deep religion of flowers and compromise, a peace that is of our own making. It is the pondering of the idea of a God whose voice is as thunder which breaths down our caverns of compromise, disturbing the façade of a faith that is like pampered skin and gourmet feasts, boasting of many things, but not sacrifice. It shoots down the idea that once you accept Christ, it is an easy path without stones or chasms or snakes or ice or fire, and presents the idea of a real Christian, suffering on a path of trial, a path of pain and climbing a never ending mountain that “knows no peak”. A path of spiritual flogging, bleeding hands, separating flesh and bone, and invoking in the heart an unquenchable desire to leave all comfort in pursuit of a higher, louder calling that is imbedded in us. This calling is suppressed, though, by believing the voices that surround us, telling of a faith that, here on earth, is comfy and cozy and full of ease, and not at all painful or challenging or tasking.

I had always felt that there was something wrong with me when I compared what my experience of Christianity was to what many of my friends told me. Back in Jesus’ time some believed that if you sinned you became ill, and in a similar way some of my friends would tell me that I wasn’t supposed to be having a rough time, that I was overthinking things, that I was too serious, that God wanted me to be joyful, that there was something wrong if I was constantly having to be healed by God from things. For a long time I struggled with the idea that if my heart was hurting, I couldn’t bring it to God, because He didn’t want to deal with a small so-called Christian who couldn’t get the system down. I was extremely wrong.

I have learned that God appreciates honesty, especially recognizing that we cannot fix our flaws on our own, that Christ waits for us to show Him our scarred faces, our bleeding hearts, so that HE can heal them. Yes, God wants us to be joyful, but a huge part of Christianity is being refined. I feel that we must suffer in this life so as to be purified for the next. Joyful suffering may sound like an oxymoron, but this is what we are called to endure. So many people separate these two words, but recognizing that we are being formed into who we were created to be, by fighting sin and temptations by, for example, stretching ourselves to treat others with kindness and respect, choosing to remain silent so as to listen better to others, waking up a little earlier so as to give undivided attention to Him in prayer, etc. are all extremely important. These are examples of small moments of suffering that draw us ever closer to Him by purging us of our selfish and sensual desires. I love that the poem goes to great lengths to describe the agony and surprise of following Christ, but ends it with “but this is all of joy”, for we truly find our joy as we scale the insurmountable peaks of daily improvement and purification. So let us be encouraged and spurred on to invite God to cleanse us from sin and to find the joy that is offered to us in the little sufferings of everyday life.