Monthly Archives: June 2017

Jun182017

Holy Spirit assistance

“How I wish, your Godliness, that you yourself may acquire this inexhaustible source of divine grace, and may always ask yourself: Am I in the Spirit of God, or not?–there is nothing to grieve about.  You are ready to appear before the awful judgement of Christ immediately.  For “In whatsoever I find you, in that will I judge you.”  But if we are not in the spirit, we must discover why not and what reason our Lord God the Holy Spirit has willed to abandon us.  We must seek him again and must go on searching until our Lord God the Holy Spirit has been found and is with us again, through His goodness.  We must attack the enemies that drive us away from him until even their dust is no more, as the Prophet David has said: “I will pursue my enemies and overtake them; and I will not turn back until they are destroyed.  I will crush them and they will be unable to stand; they will fall under my feet” (Ps 17(18): 38-39).” –Saint Seraphim ‘On Acquisition of the Holy Spirit’

Psalm 18

I love thee, O LORD,
My strength.
The LORD is my rock,
And my fortress,
And my deliverer,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
My shield,
And the horn of my salvation,
My stronghold.
I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies.

The cords of death encompassed me,
The torrents of perdition assailed me;
The cords of Sheol entangled me,
The snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called upon the LORD;
To my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
And my cry to him reached his ears.

Then the earth reeled and rocked;
The foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked,
Because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
And devouring fire from his mouth;
Glowing coals flamed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens, and came down;
Thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a cherub, and flew;
He came swiftly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering around him,
His canopy thick clouds dark with water.
Out of the brightness before him there broke through his clouds
Hailstones and coals of fire.

The LORD also thundered in the heavens,
And the Most High uttered his voice,
Hailstones and coals of fire.
And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them;
He flashed forth lightnings, and routed them.
Then the channels of the sea were seen,
And the foundations of the world were laid bare, at thy rebuke,
O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

He reached from on high,
He took me, he drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy,
And from those who hated me;
For they were too mighty for me.
They came upon me in the day of my calamity;
But the LORD was my stay.

He brought me forth into a broad place;
He delivered me, because he delighted in me.
The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me.
For I have kept the ways of the LORD,
And have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all his ordinances were before me,
And his statutes I did not put away from me.
I was blameless before him,
And I kept myself from guilt.
Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

With the loyal thou dost show thyself loyal;
With the blameless man thou dost show thyself blameless;
With the pure thou dost show thyself pure;
And with the crooked thou dost show thyself perverse.
For thou dost deliver a humble people;
But the haughty eyes thou dost bring down.

Yea, thou dost light my lamp;
The LORD my God lightens my darkness.

Yea, by thee I can crush a troop;
And by my God I can leap over a wall.
This God–His way is perfect;
The promise of the LORD proves true;
He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
For who is God, but the LORD?
And who is a rock, except our God?

The God who girded me with strength,
And made my way safe.
He made my feet like hinds’ feet,
And set me secure on the heights.
He trains my hands for war,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
Thou hast given me the shield of thy salvation,
And thy right hand supported me,
And thy help made me great.
Thou didst give a wide place for my steps under me,
And my feet did not slip.

I pursued my enemies and overtook them;
And did not turn back till they were consumed.
I thrust them through,
So that they were not able to rise;
They fell under my feet.
For thou didst gird me with strength for the battle;
Thou didst make my assailants sink under me.
Thou didst make my enemies turn their backs to me,
And those who hated me I destroyed.
They cried for help, but there was none to save,
They cried to the LORD, but he did not answer them.
I beat them fine as dust before the wind;
I cast them out like the mire of the streets.
Thou didst deliver me from strife with the peoples;
Thou didst make me the head of the nations;
People whom I had not known served me.
As soon as they heard of me they obeyed me;
Foreigners came cringing to me.
Foreigners lost heart, and came trembling out of their fastnesses.

The LORD lives; and blessed be my rock,
And exalted be the God of my salvation,
The God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me;
Who delivered me from my enemies;
Yea, thou didst exalt me above my adversaries;
Thou didst deliver me from men of violence.
For this I will extol thee, O LORD, among the nations,
And sing praises to thy name.
Great triumphs he gives to his king,
And shows steadfast love to his anointed,
To David and his descendants for ever.

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Jun172017

A Song

a poem by Richard Crashaw

LORD, when the sense of thy sweet grace
Sends up my soul to seek thy face.
Thy blessed eyes breed such desire,
I die in love’s delicious fire.
O love, I am thy Sacrifice.
Be still triumphant, blessed eyes.
Still shine on me, fair suns! that I
Still may behold, though still I die.

Though still I die, I live again;
Still longing so to be still slain,
So gainful is such loss of breath.
I die even in desire of death.
Still live in me this loving strife
Of living Death and dying Life.
For while thou sweetly slayest me
Dead to my self, I live in Thee.

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Jun162017

Black Out

Awake sleeper for the dullness of your pain inflicts severe,
Falling into a catapult, the whiplash isolates your demeanor,
Sent flying into the air, this is not levitation, that is for the pure,
Angry, cold, and wet, something inside demands venting,
You have many things to say, then keep quiet, let it rest,
A time removed from grace, allowing transference, segregation,
To be alone amidst the inner flurry, the detachment denounced by others,
Eyes focused upon the ceiling, cloudy thoughts remain unclear, immobility,
Mystery refrains within a sacrifice to rewards, this is not a time of good feelings,
Broken, sore, and beaten, the lower back announces retribution, violent lashings,
Mortification brutally imposes self-awareness, humility begets honesty, remorse,
God chisels away sin by allowing sin immersion, knowing who you are, over saturation,
Dissatisfaction produces proper discernment when satisfaction reveals sickness,
The calling of the nightingale, a pelican piercing herself, songs outside ourselves,
Like a funnel cloud, hysterical backwards advancing, altering everything upon the path,
This is the moment built upon by previous moments inexplicably leading to further…

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Jun152017

Watchfulness and Holiness

We should shun loose speech like an asp’s venom and too much company like a ‘progeny of vipers’ (Matt. 3:7), for it can plunge us into total forgetfulness of the inner struggle and bring the soul down from the heights of the joy that purity of heart gives us. This accursed forgetfulness is as opposed to attentiveness as water to fire, and forcibly fights against it all the time. Forgetfulness leads to negligence, and negligence to indifference, laziness and unnatural desire. In this way we return to where we started, like a dog to his own vomit (cf 2 Pet. 2:22). So let us shun loose speech like deadly poison. As for forgetfulness and all its consequences, they can be cured by the most strict guarding of the intellect and by the constant invocation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For without Him, we can do nothing (cf. John 15:5).  –St Hesychius from the Philokalia

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Jun142017

Rosa Mystica

a poem by Gerard Hopkins, S.J.

“The rose is a mystery”–where is it found?
Is it anything true? Does it grow upon the ground?
It was made of earth’s mould, but it went from men’s eyes,
And its place is a secret and shut in the skies.

In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine,
Find me a place by thee, mother of mine.

But where was it formerly? Which is the spot
That was blest in it once, though now it is not?
It is Galilee’s growth: it grew at God’s will
And broke into bloom upon Nazareth hill.

In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine,
I shall look on thy loveliness, mother of mine.

What was its season then? How long ago?
When was the summer that saw the bud blow?
Two thousands of years are near upon past
Since its birth and its bloom and its breathing its last.

In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine,
I shall keep time with thee, mother of mine.

Tell me the name now, tell me its name.
The heart guesses easily: is it the same?
Mary the Virgin, well the heart knows,
She is the mystery, she is that rose.

In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine,
I shall come home to thee, mother of mine.

Is Mary the rose then? Mary, the tree?
But the blossom, the blossom there–who can it be?
Who can her rose be? It could but be One
Christ Jesus our Lord, her God and her son.

In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine,
Show me thy son, mother, mother of mine.

What was the colour of that blossom bright?–
White to begin with, immaculate white.
But what a wild flush on the flakes of it stood
When the rose ran in crimsonings down the cross-wood!

In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine
I shall worship His wounds with thee, mother of mine.

How many leaves had it?–Five they were then,
Five, like the senses and members of men;
Five is their number by nature, but now
They multiply, multiply–who can tell how?

In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine
Make me a leaf in thee, mother of mine.

Does it smell sweet, too, in that holy place?
Sweet unto God and the sweetness is grace:
The breath of it bathes great heaven above
In grace that is charity, grace that is love.

To thy breast, to thy rest, to thy glory divine
Draw me by charity, mother of mine.

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Jun122017

Infused maturity of prayer

This simplification of prayer is not the work of time and years.  God bestows attractions as He pleases.  He harmonizes them, however, with our interior dispositions, and the variety of our circumstances; He invites some sooner, others later.  Should He call a soul from its very first steps in the spiritual life, His will being duly ascertained, no one has the right to hesitate to obey.  In sickness, also, and in certain states of fatigue, meditation would be often impossible, and the prayer of affections becomes as it were a necessity.  Generally, it is only after a long habit of meditation that a soul feels itself drawn to diminish its considerations, and afterwards even to suppress them almost entirely and to be satisfied, or nearly so, with a simple look.  The prayer of simplicity, therefore, means ordinarily speaking, that a long journey has been traversed; it is the normal term, at which discursive prayer ends, and there is no one who may hope to arrive there in the course of time, by a generous practice of mental prayer and the other exercises of the spiritual life.  –Abbot Vitalis Lehodey ‘The Ways of Mental Prayer’

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