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Jan212023

Prayer a means, not the end

…many people who approach prayer seriously enough to commit time to a daily prayer of meditation do not realize how seriously God takes the soul. What begins possibly to happen-the commencement of contemplative graces in prayer-is a sign that God does not seek just a devout form of prayer from a soul, whatever that might mean. He longs for the soul to give itself to him, so that he in turn can give to the soul a fuller gift of himself. The discussion of contemplative prayer is never simply to aid a soul in the advancement of prayer. That goal is always subordinated to the more primary purpose of interior prayer in opening a door within our soul to a progressive union of the soul with God.  —Father Donald Haggerty from “St John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation”

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Jan202023

Divine Office: St John of the Cross

From a Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross, priest

The knowledge of the mystery hidden within Christ Jesus

Though holy doctors have uncovered many mysteries and wonders, and devout souls have understood them in this earthly condition of ours, yet the greater part still remains to be unfolded by them, and even to be understood by them.

We must then dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides.

For this reason the apostle Paul said of Christ: In him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. The soul cannot enter into these treasures, nor attain them, unless it first crosses into and enters the thicket of suffering, enduring interior and exterior labours, and unless it first receives from God very many blessings in the intellect and in the senses, and has undergone long spiritual training.

All these are lesser things, disposing the soul for the lofty sanctuary of the knowledge of the mysteries of Christ: this is the highest wisdom attainable in this life.

Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross.

Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be steadfast and rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth – to know what is beyond knowledge, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God.

The gate that gives entry into these riches of his wisdom is the cross; because it is a narrow gate, while many seek the joys that can be gained through it, it is given to few to desire to pass through it.

RESPONSORY 1 Corinthians 2:9-10

No eye can see, no ear can hear, no heart can imagine

– the marvels that God has prepared for those who love him.

Yet God has revealed them to us through his Spirit.

– The marvels that God has prepared for those who love him.

O God, who gave the Priest Saint John an outstanding dedication to perfect self-denial and love of the Cross, grant that, by imitating him closely at all times, we may come to contemplate eternally your glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

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Jan182023

The Wellspring

That is how it is for us. Faithfulness to prayer involves a painful confrontation with what we have in our hearts. There we find things that weigh us down, tangled things, dirty things. But the day comes when, deeper down than our psychological wounds, even deeper than our sins and dirt, we reach a pure spring, the presence of God in the depths of our hearts, enabling our whole selves to be purified and renewed. “He who believes in me, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). Human beings are not purified from the outside inwards, but starting from within. Not so much by a moral effort we make, but by discovering a Presence within us and letting him act freely.

By faithfulness to prayer, we find within us a space of purity, peace, and freedom, God’s presence, closer to us than we are to ourselves. The center of the soul is God, says St. John of the Cross. We learn little by little to center our lives on him, and no longer on our wounded psychological periphery-our fears, bitterness, aggressiveness, jealousies, etc.

This kind of interiorization, which is one of the fruits of prayer, is much more than simply recollecting ourselves. It is discovering and uniting ourselves to an inner Presence that becomes our life and the source of all our thoughts and actions.  –Father Jacques Philippe ‘Thirsting For Prayer’

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Jan112023

Maturing prayer

This dying out of feelings and of tangible satisfaction is the context for the purifyıng experience in prayer that will be one indication, among others, of the possible onset of contemplative graces. Again, the ‘dark night of the senses”, a phrase Saint John of the Cross adopts for this transitional time, will be invoked as the telling metaphor for this purification, which dries up feeling and closes down fruitful experiences of reflection or of the imagination. Instead of the “light” that for some time shone on the practice of meditative reflection, providing new insights and steady consolation, the soul begins to encounter a sharp dissonance with its prior experience in prayer. A troubling sense of struggle with the exercise of meditation begins to arise. And there is no understandable reason or any evident solution to correct this. It is not simply as though a tool used in prayer had broken for the moment, a tool that could be fixed or replaced with a better tool; nor is it simply a need of finding an improved method of reflection that can cast richer light in meditation; nor is it a matter of manipulating feelings and restoring them to their former warmth. The reality of what seems now to be an ineffective effort in prayer has a source in God’s action on the soul. He apparently seeks, for one thing, to expose the soul to a greater awareness of its own inner poverty. –“St John of the Cross: Master of Contemplation” by Father Donald Haggerty

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Dec232022

Advent readings

Song of Songs

Hark! my lover–here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.
My lover speaks; he says to me,
“Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one,
and come!
“For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!

“O my dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret recesses of the cliff,
Let me see you,
let me hear your voice,
For your voice is sweet,
and you are lovely.”

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Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.

Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.
Sing to him a new song;
pluck the strings skillfully, with shouts of gladness.
Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.

But the plan of the LORD stands forever;
the design of his heart, through all generations.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.

Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield,
For in him our hearts rejoice;
in his holy name we trust.
Exult, you just, in the Lord! Sing to him a new song.

Hannah brought Samuel with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and presented him at the temple of the LORD in Shiloh. After the boy’s father had sacrificed the young bull, Hannah, his mother, approached Eli and said: “Pardon, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.  I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.  Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.” She left Samuel there. –1st Samual

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Dec202022

A Biblical son is born

There was a certain man from Zorah, of the clan of the Danites,
whose name was Manoah.
His wife was barren and had borne no children.
An angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her,
“Though you are barren and have had no children,
yet you will conceive and bear a son.
Now, then, be careful to take no wine or strong drink
and to eat nothing unclean.
As for the son you will conceive and bear,
no razor shall touch his head,
for this boy is to be consecrated to God from the womb.
It is he who will begin the deliverance of Israel
from the power of the Philistines.”

The woman went and told her husband,
“A man of God came to me;
he had the appearance of an angel of God, terrible indeed.
I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name.
But he said to me,
‘You will be with child and will bear a son.
So take neither wine nor strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.
For the boy shall be consecrated to God from the womb,
until the day of his death.’”

The woman bore a son and named him Samson.
The boy grew up and the LORD blessed him;
the Spirit of the LORD stirred him.

The Book of Judges

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