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Proper Names
Guido di Pietro was one of the greatest painters of the early Italian Renaissance.
Never heard of him? Don't worry. When he became a Dominican friar, Guido took the name Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Brother John of Fiesole). This was the name by which he was known throughout his distinguished career.
Still doesn't ring a bell? Well, about a decade after he died, Brother Giovanni was described as an "angelic painter." He has been known ever since as Fra Angelico.
You could say it took Fra Angelico his entire life to become who he really was. You could say the same about most of us.
I am reminded of the story about Michelangelo. When asked how he conceived his great statue of "David," Michelangelo is reported to have said that he just cut away all the marble that didn't look like David. We often spend much of our lives chipping away things that are superfluous, pruning away extraneous growth, and developing our true identity to the fullest.
This is not an easy task. In Abraham Verghese's novel, Cutting for Stone, the narrator writes, "We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose." He says he found his purpose in being a surgeon, partly because of Matron, the nun who was head nurse at a mission hospital where the narrator grew up. She challenged him to do the hardest thing he possibly could.
"Why must I do what is hardest?"
"Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?"
Why, indeed?
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Truth Desires - by Jan
Somewhere, deep inside each of us are precious things that we fail to recognize as our truth. Instead, many things fill our inner world, the likes of which we recall from fairy tales and legends. Perhaps we are a kind of a bottle or an oil lamp, as in Arabian folklore, that when rubbed, releases an imprisoned spirit who acquiesces to our bidding. As Carole Marie Kelly* writes, "The Latin root of the word genie, that tempting little being that emerges from its magic lamp at the most unexpected times, is 'genius,' a tutelary deity, guide or guardian spirit allotted to a person from birth." These dutiful spirits, similar to those sinister ones in Pandora 's Box, can cause great havoc unless we look to the very bottom where lies the spirit of hope.
Many wise thinkers and mystics know that we have to go deep to find our spirit of hope. Also tucked away in the niches of our soul are ample portions of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control (cf. Gal 5:22). These Gifts of the Spirit serve to unfold our inner spirit of truth. The sieve of truth is the implement which determines, through prayerful introspection, our authentic desires. What is it that we really truly desire? - things of the world brought to us by the genie when summoned? - things of the Spirit which bring us closer to the heart of God? A goal of the spiritual life is to discern the difference and then to will what God wills, to desire what God desires.
The more we are willing to go deep and to see who we really are, the more 'the truth will set us free.' When we have peeled away the layers of illusions and inordinate attachments, we are more likely to be drawn by truth's desiring, . . . recognizing the precious things.
We are incomparably stupid
when we do not strive to know who we are.
Seldom do we consider the precious things
that can be found in the soul
or who dwells in it or its high value. . . .
The soul is capable of much more
than we can imagine.
--Teresa of Avila
*Carole Marie Kelly, Symbols of Inner Truth: Uncovering the Spiritual Meaning of Experience. Mahwah: Paulist, 1988. P. 90.
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