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The Essence of Prayer Perfected

This divine knowledge of God never deals with particular things. This sublime knowledge can be received only by a person who has arrived at union with God, for it is itself that very union. It consists in a certain touch of the divinity produced in the soul, and thus it is God Himself who is experienced and tasted there… –John of the Cross

St John of the Cross Adoring

St John of the Cross Adoring

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Dead Flowers

On the purgative path, we must try not to pay attention to either sensual or spiritual delights. Any inordinate attachment blocks the road to higher state of happiness for which we are destined.  Sensory goods, enjoyed outside of God, are like flowers that bloom and whither with every passing season.  There is no reason to pay heed to any of these unstable blooms if they “detain (us) from seeking (out) Love in the mountain and riversides of virtues and trials”   (Ascent of Mount Carmel)

–Susan Muto ‘Deep into the Thicket’

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The Spiritual Canticle

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.

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Grace

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 Lehodeyvital_lehodey_tit_1

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The Spiritual Canticle (continued)

QUESTIONS TO THE CREATURES

O woods and thickets,

planted by the hand of my Beloved!

O green meadow,

coated, bright, with flowers,

tell me, has he passed by you?

 

ANSWER OF THE CREATURES

Pouring out a thousand graces,

he passed these groves in haste;

and having looked at them,

with his image alone,

clothed them in beauty.

St John of the Cross

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Bride

Where have you hidden,
Beloved, and left me moaning?
you fled like the stag
after wounding me;

I went out calling you, but you were gone.

Shepherds, you who go up
through the sheepfolds to the hill,
if by chance you see him I love most,
tell him I am sick,
I suffer, and I die.

Seeking my Love
I will head for the mountains and for watersides,
I will not gather flowers,
nor fear wild beasts;
I will go beyond strong men and frontiers.

Saint John of the Cross
‘The Spiritual Canticle’

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Avoiding Cleverness

Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent. –St. John of the Cross

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