Dear God, help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You

Have you ever read a blog that talks you into reading a book? I went right to Amazon after reading this one, over at Dappled Things by Angela Cybulski.

From 7 Reasons to read A Prayer Journal by Flannery O'Connor:

[Flannery] asks God to “let Christian principles permeate my writing” and that she be given a “strong Will to be able to bend it to the Will of the Father.”  She is very aware that it is God’s spirit moving within her that allows her any success in the practice of her craft, asking God to “take care of making [the story she is working on] a sound story because I don’t know how.”  She acknowledges repeatedly her understanding that without His grace, she will never achieve what she hopes to accomplish with her art, stating simply “God must be in all my work.” Ideally, the rightly ordered use of our gifts would help us along the pathway to sanctity. Flannery knew this when she prayed: “Dear God, help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You.” The journal offers a portrait of the artist humbled and prostrate in the face of her gift – “Don’t ever let me think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for Your story” –truly, a model for us all.

I've mentioned before a recent biography that I've very much enjoyed, The Terrible Speed of Mercy: a Spiritual Biography of Flannery O'Connor. 

But until now, I've somehow missed Flannery's connection and love for our Mother Mary, especially for Our Lady of Perpetual Help--one of my favorite, beloved images:

There is a sense throughout the journal that the goal of the artist is to practice her craft with the heart of the tax collector.  Flannery’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is a consistent prayer throughout the journal. The focus of her devotion to Mary as Our Lady of Perpetual Help is significant, expressing the necessary awareness that the need for perpetual help supposes a corresponding acknowledgement of perpetual weakness in oneself. The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is of a protective mother, carrying her child. When one considers the extreme suffering of mind, body, and soul Flannery experienced throughout her short life, one is reminded of the need to admit one’s helplessness and weakness, to trustingly allow another to carry you in her arms to your final destination. The journal is a beautiful reminder of the truth that God’s power is made perfect in our weakness and that it is He alone who works in us and through our gifts to the extent that we are able to admit of our need for help in dealing with our weaknesses. Flannery lends her voice to the chorus of many saints who have for generations emphasized that entrustment to Mary is the safest, surest path to Christ.

• JOE MCTYRE/ATLANTA CONSTITUTION

to Edith, on her feast day

Edith holding her cousin's son, 1921

Edith the philosophy student

Like Christians in the early centuries, I was confirmed at the same time that I was baptized. Although in my case, it all happened on my way home from the hospital--a mere three days after I was born in the city of Pinar del Río.

As my parents explained, everything was so uncertain and chaotic in 1960 Cuba that our pastor and family friend suggested it. Castro’s government had already shipped, literally, hundreds of priests out the country on a boat, and no one could predict how long, or if, any priests would be allowed by the communists to stay behind.

After moving to the United States as a teenager and seeing how confirmations here are done, I felt a bit cheated that I never got to pick a patron saint.

Fast forward to my early forties. Writer and dear friend Colleen Smith contacted me with a book idea, one that had been offered to her fist—but that she discerned would be a better fit for me: a biography of a Jewish convert, Carmelite nun, and soon to be saint.

When I first began reading about Edith Stein, I was more than a little freaked out.  She was a gifted, renowned philosopher, a brilliant writer and speaker—and I was entrusted with the task of writing a popular biography introducing readers to this phenomenal woman.

I began by ordering all of her books that have been translated into English by ICS Publications (Institute of Carmelite Studies), which of course, did nothing to appease my anxiety.  Stein was a prolific author and her texts were rich, academic and spiritually profound.

I looked at how others told her story and found out that there had been a number of biographies already published by people much better versed in both philosophy and Carmelite spirituality. 

What would I have to offer that was new and different?

Everything changed when I picked up Vol 5 of Edith Stein’s Collected Works: “Self Portrait In Letters 1916-1942,” translated by Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D.

In her letters I met a young woman who loved God so deeply, so profoundly that, like the original apostles, dropped everything she had and knew, to follow Him completely.

I fell in love with Edith, my self-adopted patron saint, reading her letters.

If you want to read my biography of this beautiful saint, whose feast day is today, August 9, click here.

 

published by Our Sunday Visitor

“[I]t is always a small, simple truth that I have to express: How to go about living at the Lord’s hand.” ~letter by Edith, 1931

“I do not use extraordinary means to prolong my workday. I do as much as I can. The ability to accomplish increases noticeably in proportion to the number of things that must be done. When there’s nothing urgent at hand, it ceases much sooner. Heaven is expert at economy.” ~letter by Edith, 1930