Happy Sunday!

Greetings readers!

I wish I could come to you with an intelligent and witty introduction blog, but that would be putting forth a view of myself that I simply am not going to be able to live up to. So I hope you will accept my humble introduction. My name is Clarissa Quiring and I am going to be the student coordinator of FUS Women's Ministry for the 2012-2013 school year. I'm a senior Theology major (yes, JUST theology-arguably because I'm lazy and I don't know what I want to do with my life) and I hail from the great state of Arizona. I don't really have many qualifications that make me particularly suited for this position, other than that I am a woman and I love talking about how great we, as women, truly are. So trust me when I say that every step I take in this new role of mine will be one alongside all of you, learning what exactly it means to be a woman of God in this chaotic and extremely misguided culture of ours. So be patient with me, as sometimes my heart and my mind are a little messy and my grammar is not always spot on.

One of the things that I have always struggled with (as I'm sure many of you have as well) is self-image. I never saw myself as beautiful as a teenager, so naturally when others would comment on my beauty or the way I looked I would quickly dismiss their compliment with a negation of "no, I'm too fat to be beautiful" or "thank you but I disagree." It took me many years to even recognize that this was hurtful to myself and to others, not to mention that it continually hurts God. He took so much care into creating me exactly as I am, and I have the capacity to continually hurt him by degrading his beautiful creation. Wow. When I realized the fullness of what I had been doing to myself for so many years, it was easy to say I was going to change. That I was going to see myself for what I truly am, a beautiful daughter of the most high King. But sometimes I still catch myself doubting, although not necessarily in the same way I used to. It's much more subtle now. I find myself thinking "oh, I would be more beautiful if I knew what I wanted in life" or "I could reveal beauty to others more fully if I was more composed and less crazy." I'd like to think I'm not the only one who has these thoughts. But the truth is that we have to renounce these lies. 

One thing that the Lord has really brought to my heart is to begin learning more about beauty. Since it's been such a struggle in my own spiritual journey to believe that I am truly beautiful, what better a way to combat the lies than to delve deeper into the meaning of beauty? What does it mean to be beautiful? How do we gauge the beauty of something? Something that really got me thinking about beauty was, naturally, a book about beauty. I haven't read much of it yet, but so far it's absolutely phenomenal. It's called The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet by Fr. Thomas Dubay. I've been informed that it's on the reading list for a Catechetics class, and it's also offered in the Franciscan bookstore. I encourage you to buy it and give it a read! Literally within the first chapter he confirmed something that I had felt for years, but could never put my finger on. He says this:
"Though worldly pleasure seeking never fulfills and satisfies in a continuing way, it may tend momentarily to distract and to dull the profound pain of the inner void. If these people allow themselves a moment of reflective silence, they notice a still, small voice whispering, 'Is this all there is?' They begin to sense a thirst to love with abandon, without limit, without end, without lingering aftertastes of bitterness. In other words, their inner spirit is clamoring, even if confusedly, for unending beauty." 

Of course, that unending beauty being Love itself. How powerful that statement is! It really hit my heart to realize for years I'd been trying to "dull the profound pain of the inner void" by ignoring the source. I'd been trying for so long to be beautiful by the world's standards that I neglected to realize that my heart wasn't made for this fallen world. This beauty that I noticed around me existed for a reason; the beauty existed to woo my heart. To pull me out of the darkness and into the light. And when the Lord revealed this to me, he also helped me to realize that I was more beautiful than anything else he created. Everything I see as being so beautiful in nature-the trees, the rivers, the canyons, the sunsets, the rain-he created me more beautifully than all of that! He created us, as women, to be the crowning glory of creation! To reveal His beauty more perfectly than anything else he created....EVER. So every time that I look out at a beautiful sunset over a lake in admiration, I remind myself that my beauty is more powerful than that. My beauty has the power to bring people back to His heart. The feminine heart was created to reveal beauty to the world so that they would further seek Divine Love. As women, we should be using our beauty not to lead people to sin, but to lead them to Christ. So for me, this knowledge makes it easier to realize that the world and I have very different ideas of what beauty is. I know that when the world says you need to be skinny, pretty, have shiny hair, be funny, and wear super cute clothes to be beautiful, that it isn't beauty. Beauty is resting in the arms of the Father, and leading others to do the same.


-Clarissa

Divine Romance

Have you ever felt that ache inside of you?  A hunger that yearns for something more? Something deeper?  Like there is something missing?  Do you ever feel like there is something that you intuitively know will satisfy you more than anything you have experienced thus far, but you just can’t find it?   

We all feel this ache.  Married women. Single women.  Married men. Single men. Laity. Priests. Religious. Rich. Poor. Old. Young. Chinese. German. Coaches. Lawyers. Firefighters. Politicians.        

Most times we divorce ourselves from this ache.  We slough it off as some annoying feeling and then search for our medications to squelch the pain so that it stops distracting us from doing whatever it was we were doing.  Our “Asprins” include burying ourselves in work or school, athletics or hobbies; trying to excel and complete great achievements with flying colors. We try to reach perfection with our figures, grades, relationships and status.  But after a short time, when we realize that the Asprin didn’t work, we pull out the bottle of “Tums” in hopes to remedy that ever-pressing ache: TV, music, books, wasting time on Facebook or other internet sites, scrapbooking, exercising, cleaning, reorganizing. Again, after another failed attempt to curb the ache we pump ourselves full of other medications: instant gratifications such as food and pornography, juicy intrigues, getting the latest gossip, romance novels, and feed on drama. 

 

Day after day after day after day... 

We do all sorts of things to kill the ache and not have to dig to find the source of it. 

But do you ever get tired of popping those useless pills?

What is this unnamed and seemingly irremediable ache, anyway? 

Did you read the blog post before this one?  The excerpt from Captivating? 

“God is relational to the core…He has a heart for romance…He does not want to be an option in our lives, an appendage, or a tagalong…God longs for romance…He longs to be our “ezer”…”

Hmmm…

Could this unnamed ache we all feel and can’t shake be the Lord’s pursual?  Could it be His voice whispering to us telling us that He is what we are craving?  Could it be our own longing for intimacy with Him that leaves us still aching even after trying to remedy it with the quick-fix “pills”?   

Yes.  All of the above.  See, God created us with a natural longing for a deep, personal relationship with Him.  So when we feel this unrelenting ache, it is our own personal built-in warning system saying that we have somehow forgotten or neglected our First Love.  This ache is a hunger for God.   And not just a hunger to know a God “out there;” a God who is at Church on Sundays, a God who is close only when you lose a loved one, a God who only notices you in order to clock your Christian service hours or count the number of rosaries you prayed.  That type of God is indifferent and distant.  Why would we have a hungering ache for a God like that?

No, this hunger is a hunger to know God, the Divine Lover.  The Divine Lover who is personal. Alive. Touchable. Tender. Genuinely interested. Intimate.

Wait, intimate?  

Yes, intimate.  Not a word we usually use when speaking about a relationship with God, is it?  Ahh, but He is the most intimate of Lovers.  He designed your heart with the capacity and purpose of having a deep love relationship with Him.  He created it so that only He could satisfy your need for intimacy (hence the ache and unhappiness we feel when we try to fill it with other things besides Him).  Even the beauty and intimacy of the spousal union in marriage is only a foreshadowing – a glimpse – of the degree of intimacy He longs to have with each of us.  God is passionately in love with you.  So much so that you are never out from under His loving gaze.  Never.  You are always the center of His attention and affection (don’t believe me?  Ask Jeremiah – Jer. 31:3). 

This ache we feel is simply our soul's response to the love song it hears being sung by the Divine Lover, His call to “arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come,” come deeper into the recesses of My Heart (Song of Songs 2:13-14). 

I once heard a priest give a homily reminding us that this divine romance is not always going to be lovey-dovey, daisies and rainbows.  It is not always going to be “Song of Songs” and “set me as a seal on your heart.”  True.  Very true.  There will be times of testing, trial, dryness.  However, developing this intimate love-relationship with the Lord is vital for survival when the daisies wilt and the storm clouds roll in.  Without this solid rock, your house is surely going to crumble. 

Falling in love with the Lord is the foundational step to filling that unnamed ache for something more, something greater.  And there is a big difference in loving the Lord and being in love with the Lord.  Even if you have a good relationship with the Lord, He wants to take it deeper.  There is always more.  His love is fathomless; the depth of which is uncomprehensible.     

My sisters, God longs for romance with you, not just a relationship.  This is such a basic and foundational truth, yet so easily discarded.  We lose sight of our preciousness and worth because we do not take the time to develop this intimate love relationship with the Lord.  Instead, we focus on hiding or perfecting our “flaws” (though St. Paul tells us that power is made perfect in weakness - 2Cor12:9), or on being beautiful by the world’s standards (though God tells us that beauty is fleeting and to focus our energies on pleasing the Lord, because there our true beauty lies – Prov 31:30), or we just get lazy and when it gets tough or mundane, we lose interest, or we are hindered by fear; not wanting to reveal our intimate selves to Him.  

But I will say it again.  God longs for intimacy with you.  My sisters, get in touch with the Source of this ache inside of you.  Dive into this Divine Romance with our God who is passionately in love with you!  Seek Him in prayer daily, search Him out in the Scriptures, take a walk with Him through the woods or sit with Him in the hammock in your back yard, letting Him caress your face with the breeze, sit in silence with Him and still your heart.  He has a million ways of showing His intimate love He has for you and drawing you deeper into His intimate embrace.  Just simply tune your mind and senses towards noticing His little (and big) love notes. 

 

Here is a beautiful song that seems to always waken my heart to the presence of the Lord and the romance into which He is inviting me. 

I encourage (dare I say challenge) you to ask the Lord to show you, in a tangible and concrete way, His intimate and personal love for you today.  I guarantee, if you are watching for it, you will not be disappointed.  Enter into this Divine Romance.  Enter deeply…

“The Sacred Romance calls to us in our fondest moments, our greatest loves, our noblest achievements, even our deepest hurts.  The reward is worth the risk.  God Himself longs for us, if we are but willing…” – The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis and John Eldredge

                                                                  Peace to your beautiful hearts,

                                                                   -Sr. Elizabeth, TOR

The Captivating Woman

Hello Ladies! 
       It has been a while, hasn't it?!  I hope you all have enjoyed your summer months.  We will be up and running again soon and are looking forward to another year of growing in our understanding of true femininity!
       While we are in the interim before we start the new school year, I wanted to share an excerpt I read recently.  It is from the book, Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge (if you have not read this book, I highly encourage you to get your hands on a copy!).  Here it is:

"A woman bears the image of God in a way that only the feminine can speak.  God wanted to reveal something about himself, so he gave us Eve.  First, we discover that God is relational to his core, that he has a heart for romance.  Second, that he longs to share adventures with us – adventures you cannot accomplish without him.  And finally, that God has a beauty to unveil.  A beauty that is captivating and powerfully redemptive.

A woman longs to be sought after with the whole heart of her pursuer.  God longs to be desired.  Just as a woman longs to be desired.  This is not some weakness or insecurity on the part of a woman, that deep yearning to be desired.  God feels the same way.

While Eve has a glory for relationship, that is not all she is essential for.  When God creates Eve, he calls her an “ezer kenegdo”, a “sustainer beside him”.  The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the Old Testament.  And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately.  That longing in the heart of a woman to share life together as a great adventure – that comes straight from the heart of God, who also longs for this.  He does not want to be an option in our lives.  He does not want to be an appendage, a tagalong.  Neither does any woman.  God is essential.  He wants us to need him – desperately.  Eve is essential.  She has an irreplaceable role to play.

Beauty.  Beauty is essential to God.  Beauty is the essence of God.  The reason a woman wants a beauty to unveil, the reason she asks, Do you delight in me? Is simply that God does as well. God is captivating beauty.  As David prays, “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek…that I may…gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.”  Can there be any doubt that God wants to be worshipped?  That He wants to be seen, and for us to be captivated by what we see?  The same is true for woman.  She yearns to be known and that takes time and intimacy.  It requires an unveiling.  As she is sought after, she reveals more of her beauty.  As she unveils her beauty, she draws us to know her more deeply.  Every woman has a beauty to unveil because she bears the image of God.

Eve is the crown of creation.  There is something uniquely magnificent and powerful about a woman.  You have immeasurable dignity, and there is a holiness of your feminine heart because it is God who longs for Romance; it is God who longs to be our “ezer”; it is God who reveals beauty as essential to life.  You are the image bearer of this God.  That is why you long for those things too.  There is a radiance hidden in your heart that the world desperately needs."  (- Chapter 2)
      
 Isn't this simply beautiful?  Maybe sit with this one for a while, Ladies, and let the truths written here penetrate your heart.  God is captivating beauty and you bear that image.  Next time you look in the mirror today, remind yourself of that truth.          My prayers are with each of you!   
                                                                                                          
Peace to your beautiful hearts, 

                                                                                                               
         -Sr. Elizabeth, TOR