Kidnapped, taken away to a foreign land,
Whisked away, nothing an origin,
Power immense, lacking insight,
Strange sights, strange people,
Poking, prodding, engaging, nodding,
Pleasure and pain, feelings,
Sight and emotions, aware,
Contemplating, thinking,
There in a moment, ordinary
A locked glance, common,
Confirming, all things shared,
Nothing recognized, alien,
Abnormal amidst the normal,
Time and movement, experience,
I am a family man.
By nature the soul is inclined toward harmful pleasure. And so I cover its path with thorns. I fill all the gaps with adversity, whether it likes it or not, so that it not escape me. I strew all its path with suffering so that it cannot take one step to pursue it’s heart’s desire except in the heights of my divine nature. –Henry Suso ‘Little Book of Eternal Wisdom’
St Dorotheus says, that nothing so much helps us to advance in virtue, and to acquire peace and tranquility of mind, as the opposing and resisting of our own will… ‘You are going somewhere…and you have a great mind to turn about and look at something on the way; overcome your curiosity, and do not look at it. You are in conversation—something occurs to your mind, and you think that the saying of it would make you pass for a wit; let it alone, say nothing… By chance you cast your eyes upon something brought into the house that is new, and you wish to know who brought it; ask not who did so. You see a stranger enter—curiosity urges you to know who he is, whence he comes, whither he goes, and for what business; mortify yourself by making no inquiry after him’….this exercise very much helps to produce a habit of mortifying our will; because if we accustom ourselves to renounce it in these small things, we shall the sooner be able to deprive ourselves of greater. –St Alphonsus Rodriguez ‘Christian Perfection’
THE BRIDE
Ah, who has the power to heal me?
now wholly surrender yourself!
Do not send me
any more messengers,
they cannot tell me what I must hear.
…he has placed his confidence in God alone and has accepted in advance all that his good Master may be pleased to ordain. This obviously is not the peace of paradise, but it is the most perfect peace possible here below. God does not will that we should enjoy absolute repose here on earth or enduring happiness. We cannot avoid tribulation. The cross will pursue us wherever we go. –Abbot Vital Lehodey.
Such also is the thought of St Teresa. In her ‘Interior Castle’ she teaches that “all our desires, all our meditations, all our tears, all the efforts we can make (in order to raise ourselves to supernatural quietude), are useless; God alone gives this heavenly water to whom He pleases; often He gives it just when we least think of it.” However, she requires as an indispensable disposition “humility, humility, since it is by this virtue that Our Lord allows Himself to be overcome, and is induced to grant all our desires…Let a soul be humble and detached from everything, in very truth, however, and not merely in imagination which often deceives, and the Divine Master, I have no doubt, will grant her not only this grace, but even many others surpassing all her desires.” –Abbot Vital Lehodey
St John of the Cross
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