Contemplation

Nov172014

Death and Life

We must, then, in our practical life constantly bring together these two principles of life and death. Death must ever suggest–if I may say so, bring with it–some new experience of life; and life must always have upon it the shadow of the tomb, or, better still, that light that shines upon it from the other side. Death is not all darkness, nor life all light. The light of life illuminates and warms the pallor of death. The daily dying is robbed of the chill coldness of the tomb, for in the agony of death, the heart seems only to grow warmer and more human. Life is freed from the noise and bluster that so vulgarize it and gains something of the reverence and restraint of the chamber of death. –Basil W. Maturin. ‘Christian Self-Mastery’

Father Basil Maturin (1847 – 1915), a British citizen and Irish national, died at 68 during the sinking of the Lusitania. He administered absolutions to several people on the sinking Lusitania before drowning. Maturin’s body was recovered in Ballycotton Bay. In many ways Father Maturin’s mind was a very modern one. He read omnivorously, and would come down to breakfast full of the most intense sympathy with the hero or heroine of the novel of the hour. He loved to discuss the book, and would make every allowance of heredity and environment, longing to stretch a point in interpreting the moral law, so as to find an excuse for a character who had touched his heart. Although he could at times become extremely irritated with a book or person, he was in general far readier to admire than to criticize. –Maisie Ward

Maisie Ward hailed from genteel Victorian blue blood, but she literally earned her own stripes, first as a World War I nurse and then as a writer. She could claim author’s rights to the first and only authorized biography of friend G. K. Chesterton.

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Nov112014

John of the Cross quoting scripture on marriage and chastity

It would therefore be vanity for a woman or her husband to rejoice in their marriage when they know not clearly that they are serving God better thereby. They ought rather to feel confounded, since matrimony is a cause, as Saint Paul says, whereby each one sets his heart upon the other and keeps it not wholly with God. Wherefore he says: ‘If thou shouldst find thyself free from a wife, desire not to seek a wife; while he that has one already should walk with such freedom of heart as though he had her not.’ This, together with what we have said concerning temporal blessings, he teaches us himself, in these words: ‘This is certain; as I say to you, brethren, the time is short; it remaineth that they also who have wives be as if they had none; and they that weep, as them that weep not; and they that rejoice, as them that rejoice not; and they that buy, as them that possess not; and they that use this world, as them that use it not.’76 All this he says to show us that we must not set our rejoicings upon any other thing than that which tends to the service of God, since the rest is vanity and a thing which profits not; for joy that is not according to God can bring the soul no profit.7 –Ascent of Mount Carmel.

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Nov082014

More than words, an approach

The spiritual life is not an intellectual game.  To be enamored with things of the world is a distraction.  Avoiding competition, comparing and contrasting, the recognition that worldly matters, no matter how finely done, take me away from a concentration, dedication, commitment, to God.  Things persuading, pointing to individualism, beautifully conducted, conceived on a genius level, serve a lesser purpose than simple things that point to God.  Scripture establishes that scripture itself can be abused, perverted, manipulated through self-will.  Holiness is attained through faith, hope, and charity. Contemplation, continual conscious contact with God, is not accomplished through human intellect alone, no matter the level of high degree. God did not gift superior intelligence in order to outsmart Him. Inferior ways conducted brilliantly are still inferior.

2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains for ever. 5 The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south, and goes round to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. 8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. ECCLESIASTES chp 1

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