Heroes and Heroines of the Catholic blogosphere

I’d like to record my great respect for a particular category of Catholic blogger: those who document in their blogs the joys and sorrows of their lives and the vicissitudes of their health. I am thinking especially at present of Jackie Parkes, and of Shadowlands, but there are others too.

I’m sure their words must provide a great deal of inspiration and strength. Who knows how many of their readers are in similar situations? Or in situations to which the messages in these blogs can fruitfully be applied, whether directly or by translation to suit their particular circumstances? I think Jackie and Shadowlands et al are doing a work of Christian love, the harvest of which will be made known to them one day.

A couple of years ago, when I had been given real spiritual comfort at a distressing time, I decided one Sunday to go to the principal Mass in a neighbouring parish. They like the stirring traditional hymns there, both Catholic favourites and those hymns of Charles Wesley and others which are in harmony with Catholic teaching. That Sunday I found myself singing Oh worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness, which I couldn’t remember having sung before.

In one of those strange coincidences one can experience, which may not in fact be coincidences at all, I found myself overwhelmed by the aptness of the second verse, which seems to brim over with the Lord’s generous love for us in our weakness:

Low at His feet lay thy burden of carefulness:
High on His heart He will bear it for thee,
Comfort thy sorrows, and answer thy prayerfulness,
Guiding thy steps as may best for thee be.

And that glorious line: "High on His heart He will bear it for thee". How chivalrous His love is!