What's Mine in the Mother Lode Mine

Saint John of the Cross:

Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine, and God Himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me.

Míos son los cielos y mía la tierra, míos son las gentes, los justos son míos y míos los pecadores, los ángeles son míos y la Madre de Dios y todas cosas son mías, y el mismo Dios es mío y para mi, porque Cristo es míy todo para mi.

(Walt Whitman eat your heart out.)

Here is a marvelous instantiation of the lines from the Spanish poet San Juan de la Cruz by the French poet and dramatist Paul Claudel:

…we have at our disposal for loving, understanding and serving God not only our own powers but everything from the blessed Virgin in the summit of heaven down to the poor African leper who, bell in hand, whispers the responses of the Mass through a mouth half eaten away. The whole of creation, visible and invisible, all history, all the past, the present and the future, all the treasure of the saints, multiplied by grace -- all that is at our disposal as an extension of ourselves, a mighty instrument. All the saints and the angels belong to us. We can use the intelligence of St. Thomas, the right arm of St. Michael, the hearts of Joan of Arc and Catherine of Siena, and all the hidden resources which have only to be touched to be set in action. Everything of the good, the great and the beautiful from one end of the earth to the other -- everything which begets -- it is as if all that were our work. The heroism of the missionary, the inspiration of the Doctors of the Church, the generosity of the martyrs, the genius of the artists, the burning prayer of the Poor Clares and Carmelites -- it is as if all that were ourselves; it is ourselves. All that is one with us, from the North to the South, from the Alpha to the Omega, from the Orient to the Occident; we clothe ourselves in it, we set it in motion. All that is in the orchestral activity by which we are at one and the same time revealed and made as nothing.

Recipients of such a rich patrimony inherit with it the responsibility for passing it on to others. This is the task to which we at the Cornerstone Forum want to make whatever contribution we can. We need your help and welcome your collaboration.