What a wonderful surprise this morning. I read Scott Cairns’ translation of a reflection from St. Francis. In these words, I am reminded of the sweet sap of the cross. In the cross of Christ, the bitter, the revolting, and the situations that offend us, become a sweetness to the soul: our death become life. Listen to some of the words from “Mercy,”

This is how our Lord allowed me
to begin my healing: While I yet walked
in sin, the mere sight of lepers was as
a bitterness I could not bear. Therefore,
the Lord Himself drew me to life
among them, and so doing gave me
to have mercy on them. By the time
I left them, the bitterness had turned
to a sweetness of soul and of body.

From Love’s Immensity – Mystics on the Endless Life by Scott Cairns.

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