Pondering Pages/The Reed of God

Once again, I join with Lara at Holy Mothering to share my love for books.

I have recently read "The Reed of God" by Caryll Houselander written in 1944. This was a fabulous book and I absolutely loved it! (I also greatly enjoyed "The Way of the Cross" by the same author.) Her writing is poetic and her love and understanding of the Virgin Mary is deeply felt through her inspired words. This was a book that could not be put down once it was begun! The opening paragraphs follow...

"That virginal quality, which, for want of a better word,I call emptiness is the beginning of contemplation.

It is not a formless emptiness, a void without meaning; on the contrary it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it was intended.

It is emptiness like the hollow in a reed, the narrow riftless emptiness which can only have one destiny: to receive the piper's breath and to utter the song that is in his heart.

It is emptiness like the hollow in the cup, shaped to receive water or wine.

It is an emptiness like that of a bird's nest,built in a warm, round ring to receive the little bird.

The pre-Advent emptiness of our Lady's purposeful virginity was indeed like those three things.

She was a reed through which the Eternal Love was to be piped as a shepherd's song.

She was a flowerlike chalice into which the purest water of humanity was to be poured, mingled with wine, changed to the crimson blood of love and lifted up in sacrifice.

She was the warm nest rounded to the shape of humanity to receive the Divine Little Bird."