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Selfish ungrateful singularity of being

More words of guidance from Myron. In the presence of Our Lord, reposed, may his soul continue to serve others–his life continuing to serve as inspiration. Myron’s thoughts: Intimate obedience and service to God’s will provides protection, the mantle of God sheltering our lives, graces through Mary, for ourselves and those we love, showered upon us. If we forsake divine fellowship, trusting in ourselves and/or unGodly guidance it is not that God curses us.  No.  God loves unconditionally. In fact, what occurs is a self-cursing. Obstinately, we shrug off the mantle of God’s protection, disregarding, ignoring and neglecting the fact Christ died upon the cross for us. We strike out boldly, yet ignorantly and blindly on our own. Ungrateful servants, we act as if we owe nothing to God. Even a dog will lick the hand of its master. All bets are off regarding outcomes. Our lives become self-raised flags declaring independence, isolated from righteousness, blowing in the wind of cruel fate.  Satan was one who dreamed he could stand alone.  In truth, abiding in fierce self-determination and relativism, we damage not only ourselves, but all those unfortunate enough to enter into intimacy. Shakespeare says it well, yet he leaves out the eternal misery of recognizing life as merely a trifling to be played at through ingratitude, vanity, and selfishness.  Life is short, eternity is long.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

There is more.

As it was it the beginning, it is now, and will be forever.

Give it away.  It was yours only to know, love, and adore God.  That is a loving privilege, not a chore or demand.

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Subterfuge Impossible

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‘contemplation is the soul’s free and clear dwelling upon the object of its gaze’. (Aquinas)

Three things are required for contemplation. First, the ordering of the corrupt affections, which ordering is a certain disposition towards contemplation, and this is had through the moral virtues. So the wings are moral virtues, such as patience and humility etc…Another wing is charity which greatly helps one to fly to contemplation…Another wing is wisdom, and by the wings of wisdom, truth is contemplated, for without these wings, one is easily taken into errors if divine things are contemplated…(Aquinas)

Super Psalmos, the image of ‘wings’ occurs a number of times and most memorably, perhaps, when Thomas is referring to the power of Christ’s protection. Thus, commenting on the phrase Protect me under the shadow of your wings, he writes: ‘The two wings are the two arms of Christ extended on the cross’….

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Now shade protects us from heat, just as God’s care refreshes us with safety. Like wise a hen protects her chicks in her wings against a bird of prey, just as God defends the just from the rapacity of the demons in his wings, which are charity and mercy. How often I wanted to gather you just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not. Mt. 23.37…

The actual life of contemplation, evoked by the phrase ‘contemplata aliis tradere’, is a way of life that can hope to survive and flourish only if it is able enjoy a serene, meditative environment….Those who ‘take flight’ in contemplation, and in particular those who make great progress in prayer, are not men and women of a complacent and self-satisfied disposition. No, the opposite is the case. Commenting on the text, This poor man called and the Lord heard him, (Psalm 33), Thomas (Aquinas) observes that the individual, in this case, was manifestly ‘poor in spirit (anawim), or poor in that way, or poor in earthly desires’. And it is men and women who are poor in that way, Thomas insists, whose prayer has real merit in the end, and who, because they cry out ‘with the intensity of interior desire’ find their prayers answered by God.

To me, poor wretch,
Come quickly, Lord!
My helper, my savior, my God,
Come and do not delay!

These lines of manifest poverty of spirit, and intense longing, comprise the short stanza which concludes Psalm 39. The Dominican Master, instead of simply commenting on the lines, expresses something of their meaning in his own direct and simple prose:

I am asking everything because by myself I am not able to do anything since I am a beggar…A beggar is someone who seeks from another what he needs to live, while a poor man is someone who has not enough for himself…I must out of necessity, therefore, beg God for the help of his grace.  I am also a poor man, and what I possess is not enough for me.  Because I recognize this, the Lord takes care of me.  And, because I am needy, You, Lord, are my help.  And, because of danger, Do not delay!  Lord, come to my aid!

–Paul Murray OP ‘Aquinas at Prayer: The Bible, Mysticism and Poetry’

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Maintaining Fortitude

I have been reflecting upon a statement Myron, a respected spiritual director repeated that one could not retreat, nor cease upon the spiritual path.  Once an individual progresses there is no going back, nor is there a point of termination.  One cannot rest upon one’s laurels.  One never reaches an end.  God always demands more, acutely desiring growth, challenging for continual progress in humility and trust (faith), prayer (hope), and charity; a persistent revealing of the utility of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our contemplative and active lives.  I cannot embark upon the contemplative life with a passion; experiencing sweet consolations, enjoying the blessing of graces for myself and those I love, comprehending a presence within prayer efforts possessing poignant profoundness—only to falter when matters become challenging, or personal situations become demanding.  Boredom, sloth, can be crippling quandaries.  Not only do I become still in my knowing, I learn to remain still, trusting God under all conditions.

My spiritual life must become the foundation of my life.  All other activities and experiences nurturing, pointing back, allowing quietness during properly dedicated times of prayer and devotion.  Well rounded socially—not a spiritual glutton, physically active and participating in the world with secular and religious brothers and sisters, absolutely loving life and creation, I place the Creator above and in proper perspective, while active as an ordinary simple man in the world.  I love my Tuesday and Fridays, days every week I play basketball.  The competition and exercise emboldens my spiritual life, even if I have a terrible day on the court.  Contemplatively, efflorescence occurs when a naturally arising, authentic, love for life and creation pours forth.  I found it impressive that St Jane de Chantal, suffering immense spiritual darkness, conducted herself with no bleakness.  She comprehended the vitality of displaying faith, hope, and charity.

I cannot experience God’s approval for furthering contemplative devotion, then respond with a decision to scale back my efforts.  The softer easier road cannot be embarked upon once the narrower road has been presented.  A calling recognized, I must embrace, trusting in God, focused upon revealing further His desires.  There is a former priest I socially encounter that always leaves me disturbed.  During a Christmas gathering this past holiday season, I encountered the gentleman.  Assuming center stage, he led Christmas carols during the large dinner party.  Articulate, highly educated, adept in foreign languages, knowledgeable in worldly affairs, ardently putting forth liberal ideals, he talked unceasingly.  It never ceases to amaze me how awkwardly false the man appears.  Comically, his clothes always seem too big for him, never quite fitting properly.  His behavior comes off contrived and premediated, overly thought out and self-conscious.  His words are too loud, and his tendency to leer at women make him socially graceless.  I know the man’s story for he shared it with me during a private dinner.  His childhood was marked by an early declaration he would become a priest.  A recognized child genius, an extremely high IQ, he graduated from high school in his early teens, immediately entering the seminary.  I am not sure of his tenure as a priest, yet I do know he left the priesthood after discerning marriage as his proper vocation.  The man is now divorced, a recovering alcoholic, and tragically recently endured the suicide of an adult son.  The whole matter leaves me perplexed, a lasting dark feeling–even now I pause to offer prayers for his peace of mind.  Avoiding judgment or affirmations, I just cannot make sense of matters when this man is near.  Everything seems completely out of order, self-will seemingly making an absolute disaster out of life, chaos all too apparent.

He who trusts himself is lost. He who trusts God can do all things. —St Alphonsus Ligouri

With those who are perfect and walk with simplicity, there is nothing small and contemptible, if it be a thing that pleases God; for the pleasure of God is the object at which alone they aim, and which is the reason, the measure, and the reward of all their occupations, actions, and plans; and so, in whatever they find this, it is for them a great and important thing.  — Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez

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Holy Hour and St Jane de Chantal reflection

Background a Crucifix
Forefront the Eucharist
Here am I
Here
I
Am
Fully present
Adoring aware
Transfixed staring
Removed from the world
Silently reposed
Cleverness collapsed
Intellect annihilated
Willing to be dumb
No more bright ideas
Eradicated schemes
As quiet as a mouse
Still
Knowing enough is enough
Lord
Fill me to overflowing

I say know thy self. Understand there will never be a shortage of people willing to throw themselves into the limelight and attention of obsessively active lives. There will always be a shortage of people willing to recede, dedicating themselves to lives of prayer and contemplation, silently and secretly turning to God.

A quote I borrow from Contemplative in the Mud. It precisely states a personal conviction and dedication

“A soul who has this spirit of prayer [contemplation] does more work in one hour than another, who is without it, will do in many; and her work done, she hastens to converse with her God, for this is her repose”.Saint Jane Frances de Chantal

St Jane de Chantal was therefore reduced to such a state that nothing on earth could afford any comfort, excepting the thought of death, “It is now forty-one years that temptations have been overwhelming me,” she said one day. “Ought I therefore to lose courage? No! I am determined to hope in God even though he should kill me and annihilate me forever.” She added these humble and magnificent words: “My soul was a piece of iron so rusted with sin that it needed this fire of Divine Justice to burnish it a little.”

“In the state of abandonment,” writes St Alphonsus, “Her one rule of conduct simply to look at God allow him to act. She always exhibited a cheerful countenance, was pleasant in conversation and kept her eyes continually fixed on the lord, reposing in the bosom of his adorable will. Saint Francis de Sales, her director, knowing how beautiful this soul was in the sight of God, compare her to a deaf musician who produces exquisite music, yet can derive no pleasure therefrom. He wrote to her as follows: ‘You must manifest an invincible loyalty towards the savior, serving him not alone without satisfaction but under the cruel oppression of sadness and fear.’ Later on, Mother de Chantel gave this prudent and virile counsel: ‘Never speak of your troubles either to God or to yourself. Do not scrutinize them. Keep looking at God and if you can speak to Him, speak to Him only of Himself.’. —Abbot Vital Lehodey, ‘The Way That Leads to God’.

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Intense words from St Jane de Chantal.  It reminds me of a recent extremely heated and emotional confrontation I was a part of, a situation that exhausted and defeated to the deepest depths.  The healing necessary to love God on the deepest level, to bring about holy unification, the synchronization of individual will with Divine Will, occurs absolutely within the natural and daily realm.  It is warfare.  Generalizing, the extended confrontation involved myself being wounded within a complex situation.  Creating overwhelming emotional turmoil, I found myself tuned through Eucharistic adoration, mass, the receiving of the Eucharist, and participation amidst a splendid congregation and my favorite Poor Clares.  Something of note I want to stress is that St Jane de Chantal’s words are more than intellectual wisdom, more than an entertaining pursuit.  They are difficult words to embrace, bringing fruition only through struggle.  To advance upon the contemplative path they must become a daily reality.  The sadness and fear she worked through as she concentrated her focus upon God are stark and harsh daily realities to be warred against, individual warfare to the extreme.  The gifts of the Holy Spirit are the weapons able to provide progress.

The words St Jane de Chantal writes attain profoundness, able to shower graces, when lived.  If intellectualizing about the spiritual life is just that, solely an exercise in cleverness, it is sheer pride, vanity of vanities. To read, comprehend, and admire winged words means nothing if they do not assist us in growth.  The reason I point this is out is that during my recent confrontation a remark was made that I find enlightening, one that must be understood.  Stressing that a certain act I made was soundly grounded in faith, hope, and charity–making the assertion several times, I was rebuked with the sarcastic comment associating my words as cartoonish.  The insinuation being that the ideals pursued during my deepest religious efforts were really not applicable in tremendously challenging and complex psychological moments, including a moment when individual brokenness of two authentically religious pursuing human beings came into severe conflict. The implied message that during extreme difficulties religious ideals are actually humorous if applied is enlightening. The dramatic dark undertone defining the religious life, and therefore God, as purely idealistic.  During the most difficult of moments–beyond self-will, involving individual damage, psychological distortions that are self-inflicted and inflicted by others reaching back to earliest childhood, while always under the watchful tending of God, to the care of Mary, the times St Jane de Chantal describes as presenting her with death as a tender mercy, these brutally problematic times must not be a time of abandoning the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The gifts of the contemplative spirit: wisdom, understanding, and knowledge/piety prove essential in shaping our foundation for employing the active gifts in our daily life, thus the expansion of the virtues within, providing greater contemplation. The natural life properly, penetratingly, and curatively cared for produces immense spiritual growth. It demands individual responsibility, and thus accountability. It is a matter of our doing. Let’s take inspiration from David’s slaying of Goliath. The contemplative gifts are the weapons, the stones waiting in David’s pouch, to be utilized in warring against our Goliaths the deepest parts of ourselves that are not only interiorly wounding, but also dangerous to those who dare to love us.  We are not David.  We do not kill our Goliath with the one stone of charity.  We must utilize all the stones in our holy pouch.  We must not fall away from the gifts of God during personal warfare.  As St Jane de Chantal declares: ‘No! I am determined to hope in God even though he should kill me and annihilate me forever’.  David rejected the armor of Saul, the softer easier path of the worldly.  It is during our most severe struggles that we must be drawn to that which is holy, to that which is above, striving for that which I know in my heart I should be.  It is why the saints are vital to the spiritual life.  The saints not only provide wisdom, they give example.

The saints did not seek out the softer easier way.  A natural tendency is to be drawn away from the difficult, the truly redemptive, seeking comfort in things that are not holy, opting for the shallowness of worldly things and people who do not aspire toward God.  It is important to recognize the opposite softer easier path that being the path of spiritual gluttony, avoiding personal growth through excessive involvement in religious matters.  To over indulge is just as dangerous as being drawn away from the holy.  If I seek the holy for wisdom, while ignoring piety, not on an evil level, but on a level of avoiding the most hurtful growth, I am not expanding my faith, hope, and charity through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  If God has placed holy things in my life and I am drawn to unGodly, not evil but shallow, superficial people, places, and things I am embarking upon a wayward path, especially if I have dedicated my life to the deeper calling of a contemplative in the world.  An immature spirituality seeks out that which possesses no serious depth or maturity.   While embracing the ordinary, not seeking self-inflicted austerities–for such austerities are spiritual gluttony rather than redemptive, I must be able to embrace the difficult.  With respect to eternity, the narrow harder path is truly the softer easier path.

St John of the Cross provides spiritual guidance: Strive always to choose not that which is easiest, but that which is most difficult, not that which is most delectable, but that which is most unpleasing; not that which gives most pleasure, but that which gives no pleasure.  To choose not that which is restful, but that which is most worrisome; not that which gives consolation, but that which gives no consolation; not that which is greatest, but that which is least; not that which is loftiest and most precious, but that which is lowest and most despised; not that which is a desire for anything, but that which is a desire for nothing.  To go about seeking not the best things but the worst.  And to have detachment and emptiness and poverty, with respect to that which is in the world, for Jesus Christ’s sake.

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A further prayer from St Thomas Aquinas

Prayer of Praise and Thanksgiving

I praise,
Glorify and bless you,
My God,
For the immeasurable
Favours shown to me
Who am unworthy.

I praise
Your kind forbearance,
Waiting on me for so long

And your gentleness
Appearing in the guise of a sharp reprisal.

I praise
Your tenderness
Calling out to me,

Your kindness
Supporting me,

Your mercy
Forgiving my sins

I praise
Your goodness for giving me
More than I deserve
And your patience
For not remembering
Past injuries

I praise your humility
That consoles me,
Your patience
That protects me,
Your eternity
That preserves me,
Your truth
That rewards me.

What can I say,
My God, about your ineffable generosity?

For you call back the fugitive,
You welcome the one who returns.

You support the one who falters.

You gladden the despondent,
You urge on the negligent.

You arm the warrior,
You crown the victor.

You spurn the repentant sinner,
You do not remember past crimes.

You set us free from many perils,
You soften our hearts for penitence.

You frighten us with chastisements,
You entice us with promises.

You correct us with scourges,
You guard us with a ministering angel.

Temporal things
You supply for us, eternal things you keep for us
In reserve.

You inspire us with grandeur of creation.

You draw us forward
With the mercy of redemption. You promise us
Blessings in reward.

For all these things
I cannot give sufficient praise.

I give thanks, however,
To your majesty,
For the abundance of your immense goodness,
May you always
Increase your grace in me,
Preserve that increase,
And reward what you have preserved.

Amen.

Corpus Christi

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