Monthly Archives: June 2016

Jun232016

Beyond concepts, a way of being and prayer

The Throne Room of God’s Mysteries:
Mary’s womb.

These expressions show more clearly
The intimate union existing between Jesus and Mary.
So closely are they united
That one is wholly the other.
Jesus is all in Mary
Mary is all in Jesus.
Or rather,
It is no longer she who lives,
But Jesus alone who lives in her.
It would be easier to separate light from the sun
Than Mary from Jesus.

Be delighted to remain in the beautiful
Interior of Mary…
Rest there peacefully,
Rely on it confidently,
Hide ourselves there with safety,
Abandon ourselves unconditionally
Within her virginal bosom:
Be nourished with the milk of her grace
Her motherly compassion.
Be delivered from all anxiety, fear and scruples.

Monsieur Olier ‘The Interior Life of Mary’

Mary Assumption

Mary Assumption

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Jun232016

Early Childhood: autonomy versus shame and doubt

The more common error is that the will of the child gets stamped out by a parent being too firm, and constantly saying no, so that the child never makes her own choices. This opens the child up to many hurts. Psychologist Martin Seligman says the main factor in whether a person gets permanently hurt or not doesn’t seem to be the severity of the situation. People go through tremendous crises–prison camps,  murders, rapes—and they can grow from them. Others get wiped out by just a minor thing. They fall down the stairs and for the rest of their life they’re afraid of everything. According to Dr Seligman it isn’t the severity of the situation but whether people feel helpless and out of control. If they don’t sense they have a will, that they’re in charge, then anything can just come in and wipe them out. That’s why this stages is so important. It builds that inner confidence and resiliency. Because I have a self, I can bounce back on my own two feet. Nothing is going to wipe me out. With my will I can say no to all the ways a situation is paralyzing me and begin to grow by making the choices I can make rather than be passively depending on the situation to change.

A healthy will fosters physical and emotional health. Many believe that dependency illnesses (addictions) have roots in a wounded sense of autonomy. –Healing the Eight Stages of Life

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Jun222016

A prayer from Father Garrigou-Lagrange

“Lord, teach me to know the obstacles that, consciously or unconsciously, I am placing in the way of Thy grace in me. Give me the strength to put them aside, and if I am negligent therein, vouchsafe Thyself to remove them, howsoever I may suffer thereby. What wouldst Thou have me to do for Thee this day, my God? Show me what it is in me that displeaseth Thee. Teach me rightly to value the Precious Blood which Thou didst shed for me, of the sacramental or spiritual communion by which we are enabled to drink that Blood from the wound of Thy most loving Heart.”

“Make me, O Lord, to grow in love of Thee. Grant that our inner conversation may never cease; that I may never separate myself from Thee; that I may receive all that Thou dost deign to give me; and that I may not stand in the way of the grace which through me should be poured out upon other souls to give them light and life.”

Scripture supplied by significant other:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways submit to him,
And he will make your paths straight.”  

Proverbs 3:5-6

A word Tohubohu: chaos; disorder; confusion.

Quote: Learn this: joy is not merely joyful; it is great. So be lovers gaily then, the devil! and marry, when you do marry, with the fever and the dizziness and the uproar and the tohubohu of happiness.  — Victor Hugo, translated by Charles E. Wilbour, Les Misérables, 1862

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Jun212016

A soul in formation

Another distortion at this stage (not developing the basic psychological foundation of trust during infancy) is to focus our mistrust and despair upon ourselves, and with whatever trust and hope we have, to see God as a rescuing parent who comes down to save us from our rottenness.  Such an attitude might be called “Christian Wormism,” since it emphasizes how lowly we are.  The patterns of sin that can emerge from this attitude are based upon a contempt for ourselves and the rest of God’s creation (rather than seeing creation as fundamentally good, although flawed by original sin).  Such an attitude can lead us to passively wait for God to rescue us from this rotten world rather than working together with God to redeem creation and bring it to fulfillment.  God hates sins, but loves person who become sinners, never forgetting their fundamental goodness. –Healing the Eight Stages of Life

IMG_4396a500

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Jun202016

A significant other’s contribution

from A Life for a Life

Oh, the comfort—
The inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—
Having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
But pouring them all right out,
Just as they are,
Chaff and grain together;
Certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
Keep what is worth keeping,
And then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887)

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Jun202016

“By the meekness and gentleness of Christ.”

The quality in our relations with our fellowmen which, says Saint Thomas, immediately disposes us to the life of vision is love of peace. And why? Because the life of vision (contemplative life)—is incompatible with agitation. You cannot adore God in self oblivion, you cannot, ”cast all your cares away,” during prayer, if you are tossed about on a sea of worries and solicitudes about external things, nor can you if you are not yet at peace within the mind itself because of a lack of complete identity of personal will with Divine Will (obstinance and immaturity inflicting blindness). “Wisdom,” says Saint Augustine, “is to the peace lovers, in whom there is no movement of rebellion, but obedience to Reason.” But wisdom is the end.

…wisdom reduces the manifold of life to God, and therefore makes things intelligible as a unity…the vision, the intuition or awareness, of all things in all their concreteness, their goodness and beauty as well as their truth; above all, you need some degree, at least, of direct knowledge of the nature of God; and when you have that vision in its plenitude, able to see all things in Him and Him in all things—and at the same time the wisdom which judges all things in the light of the highest of all causes, the Cause of all Being Itself, then you have wisdom, the fullest and deepest perception; seeing things as it were with the eyes of God, then you share something of the peace of God.

….supreme wisdom is “from above” (infused), given to those who have the humility and the docility to receive it; it is given to those who have learned to be as little children…it is the joy, peace, and exhilaration of learning from love.  –Father Gerald Vann ‘The Divine Pity’

Father Gerald Vann

Father Gerald Vann

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