When darkness turns into light....

Ch. 12. #2. The first and principal benefit caused by the arid and dark night of contemplation: the knowledge of oneself and of one’s misery. #3. The soul learns to commune with God with more respect and more courtesy. #4. God will enlighten the soul, giving it knowledge, not only of its lowliness and wretchedness, but of the greatness and excellence of God. He cleanses and frees the understanding that it may understand the truth. #7. From the aridities and voids of this night of the desire, the soul draws spiritual humility. #8. The soul is aware only of its own wretchedness – and esteems neighbors.

What is Grace?

"What is grace?" I asked God.

And He said,

All that happens."

Then He added, when I looked perplexed,

"Could not lovers
say that every moment in their Beloved's arms
was grace?

Existence is my arms,
though I well understand how one can turn
away from
me

until the heart has
wisdom."
-Saint John of the Cross

How do you see the day?

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.
-John O'Donohue

Have you felt love like this?

Wring out my clothes

Such love does
the sky now pour,
that whenever I stand in a field.

I have to wring out the light
when I get
home.

-St. Francis of Assisi

Are you restless?

"There is within us a fundamental dis-ease, an unquenchable fire that renders us incapable, in this life, of ever coming to full peace. This desire lies at the center of our lives, in the marrow of our bones, and in the deep recesses of the soul. At the heart of all great literature, poetry, art, philosophy, psychology, and religion lies the naming and analyzing of this desire. Spirituality is, ultimately, about what we do with that desire. What we do with our longings, both in terms of handling the pain and the hope they bring us, that is our spirituality . . . Augustine says: ‘You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ Spirituality is about what we do with our unrest."
— Ronald Rolheiser

One hot day!!!!!!

117 degrees in Phoenix today (8/26/11) - hottest August day ever!!!!

The power of silence

Our being is silent, but our existence is noisy. Our actions tend to be noisy, but when they stop, there is a ground of silence which is always there. ...Silence is greatly symbolic in our time.

Merton. Thomas. The Springs of Contemplation: A Retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1992), 18
 

What do you see at night?

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light.
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it,
Time in hours, days, years,
Driv'n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow moved; in which the world
And all her train were hurled.
- Henry Vaughan, 17th Century British Mystic

What is prayer?

Prayer is
The world in tune,
A spirit-voice,
And vocal joys,
Whose echo is heaven's bliss.
-Henry Vaughan

Do you see the events of life as a gift or a curse?

Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our father's love — difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul's miseries, her burdens, her needs — everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness — Everything is a grace because everything is God's gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events — to the heart that loves, all is well.
-St.Therese Little Flower

True motivation

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love. 

- Henry Drummond

Restless souls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee..”

 - St. Augustine of Hippo

Good advice

When Life is dark

Bk. 2 Ch. 16. #15. In this darkness faith alone – which is dark also – should be the light we use. (not visions)

St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mt. Carmel

Are you praying too small?

"You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him." 

St. Teresa of Avila

On Humility

Bk. 2. Ch. 7. #11. When he is brought to nothing, the highest degree of humility, the spiritual union between his soul and God will be effected. The journey does not consist on recreations, experiences and spiritual feelings, but in the living, sensory and spiritual, exterior and interior death of the cross.

St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mt. Carmel

Prayer plus action!

"The most potent and acceptable prayer is the prayer that leaves the best effects. I don't mean it must immediately fill the soul with desire . . . The best effects [are] those that are followed up by actions-----when the soul not only desires the honor of God, but really strives for it. "

St. Teresa of Avila

The dark night

Bk. 2. Ch. 3. #4. Faith is a dark night for man, but in this very way it gives him light.

St. John of the Cross. Ascent of Mt. Carmel

What is love....

"It is love alone that gives worth to all things."


St. Teresa of Avila

Seeking God

Bk. 1. Ch. 5. #6. This perfection consists in voiding and stripping and purifying the soul of every desire. #7. God will give to the soul a new understanding of God in God, the old human understanding being cast aside – and a new love of God in God.

St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mt. Carmel

Kurt Vonnegut wisdom for a Saturday

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

—	Kurt Vonnegut