What more do you want, 0 soul! And what else do you search for outside, when within yourself you possess your riches, delights, satisfactions, fullness, and kingdom -your Beloved whom you desire and seek? Be joyful and gladdened in your interior recollection with Him, for you have Him so close to you. Desire Him there, adore Him there. Do not go in pursuit of Him outside yourself. You will only become distracted and wearied thereby, and you shall not find Him, nor enjoy Him more securely, nor sooner, nor more intimately than by seeking Him within you. –St John of the Cross
I am pale with sick desire, For my heart is far away From this world’s fitful fire And this world’s waning day; In a dream it overleaps A world of tedious ills To where the sunshine sleeps On the everlasting hills.– Say the Saints: There Angels ease us Glorified and white. They say: We rest in Jesus, Where is not day or night.
My soul saith: I have sought For a home that is not gained, I have spent yet nothing bought, Have laboured but not attained; My pride strove to mount and grow, And hath but dwindled down; My love sought love, and lo! Hath not attained its crown.– Say the Saints: Fresh souls increase us, None languish or recede. They say: We love our Jesus, And He loves us indeed.
I cannot rise above, I cannot rest beneath, I cannot find out love, Or escape from death; Dear hopes and joys gone by Still mock me with a name; My best beloved die, And I cannot die with them.– Say the Saints: No deaths decrease us, Where our rest is glorious. They say: We live in Jesus, Who once died for us.
O my soul, she beats her wings And pants to fly away Up to immortal things In the heavenly day: Yet she flags and almost faints; Can such be meant for me?– Come and see, say the Saints. Saith Jesus: Come and see. Say the Saints: His pleasures please us Before God and the Lamb. Come and taste My sweets, saith Jesus: Be with Me where I am.
We must acknowledge ourselves incapable of praying of ourselves, and invoke the Holy Ghost.- O Lord, I am not of myself capable of having a good thought, but my sufficiency is from Thee. I am not able to concentrate my thoughts if Thou dost not control them, nor to raise my heart to Thee, unless Thou dost attract it; nor to love Thee, if Thou dost not inflame me; nor to form a good resolution, still less to put it in practice, if Thou dost not give me “to will and to accomplish.” I renounce, therefore, my own thoughts, which are not capable of guiding me aright as to what concerns my salvation, and my own affections, which are wont to tend towards evil Come, then, O Divine Spirit, have compassion on my indigence, I abandon myself to Thee, in order that, illuminated, moved and guided by Thee, I may make my meditation well; come, enlighten my intelligence, inflame my heart and convert my will, that my prayer may contribute to Thy glory and to my own spiritual advancement. –“The Ways of Mental Prayer” by Dom Vitalis Lehodey
I have been doing a lot of reading, studying, conducting an online course through Hillsdale College on Western Philosophy, preparing myself to return to school at sixty years old. The goal is to complete a Bachelor’s degree in order to retire into a position as a high school teacher. I feel it is a call from God. A lifetime of pursuing ideas, the arts, travel, and persevering though self-inflicted suffering, I am confident God is endowing me with a message to share with young minds. In the current process, trudging through Nietzsche’s ‘Beyond Good and Evil’, ideas of the philologist of complex reputation made me sit up in my seat and take serious notice—forcing me, as many of his sentences do, to reread the thoughts over and over.
In our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art of NUANCE, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do hard penance for having fallen upon men and things with Yea and Nay. Everything is so arranged that the worst of all tastes, THE TASTE FOR THE UNCONDITIONAL, is cruelly befooled and abused, until a man learns to introduce a little art into his sentiments, and prefers to try conclusions with the artificial, as do the real artists of life. The angry and reverent spirit peculiar to youth appears to allow itself no peace, until it has suitably falsified men and things, to be able to vent its passion upon them: youth in itself even, is something falsifying and deceptive. Later on, when the young soul, tortured by continual disillusions, finally turns suspiciously against itself—still ardent and savage even in its suspicion and remorse of conscience: how it upbraids itself, how impatiently it tears itself, how it revenges itself for its long self-blinding, as though it had been a voluntary blindness! In this transition one punishes oneself by distrust of one’s sentiments; one tortures one’s enthusiasm with doubt, one feels even the good conscience to be a danger, as if it were the self-concealment and lassitude of a more refined uprightness; and above all, one espouses upon principle the cause AGAINST “youth.”—A decade later, and one comprehends that all this was also still—youth!
The delight of Don Quixote increased in relevancy as I came across a quote of Immanuel Kant: “It is the Land of Truth (enchanted name!), surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the true home of illusion, where many a fog bank and ice, that soon melts away, tempt us to believe in new lands, while constantly deceiving the adventurous mariner with vain hopes, and involving him in adventures which he can never leave, yet never bring to an end.” Now on to another misadventurous conversation between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. They have departed the luxurious home of the Duke and Duchess, loving pranksters, Don Quixote convinced he has avoided the passionate love of a young pretty maiden—all a part of the charades—now the knight-errant and his squire re-embark upon the wonderous road of adventure.
When Don Quixote saw himself in open country, free, and relieved from the attentions of Altisidora, he felt at his ease, and in fresh spirits to take up the pursuit of chivalry once more; and turning to Sancho, he said, “Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has bestowed upon men; no treasures that the earth holds buried or the sea conceals can compare with it; for freedom, as for honour, life may and should be ventured; and on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can fall to the lot of man. I say this, Sancho, because thou hast seen the good cheer, the abundance we have enjoyed in this castle we are leaving; well then, amid those dainty banquets and snow-cooled beverages I felt as though I were undergoing the straits of hunger, because I did not enjoy them with the same freedom as if they had been mine own; for the sense of being under an obligation to return benefits and favours received is a restraint that checks the independence of the spirit. Happy he, to whom heaven has given a piece of bread for which he is not bound to give thanks to any but heaven itself!”
“For all your worship says,” said Sancho, “it is not becoming that there should be no thanks on our part for two hundred gold crowns that the duke’s majordomo has given me in a little purse which I carry next my heart, like a warming plaster or comforter, to meet any chance calls; for we shan’t always find castles where they’ll entertain us; now and then we may light upon roadside inns where they’ll cudgel us.”
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Sancho was amazed afresh at the extent of his master’s knowledge, as much as if he had never known him, for it seemed to him that there was no story or event in the world that he had not at his fingers’ ends and fixed in his memory, and he said to him, “In truth, master mine, if this that has happened to us to-day is to be called an adventure, it has been one of the sweetest and pleasantest that have befallen us in the whole course of our travels; we have come out of it unbelaboured and undismayed, neither have we drawn sword nor have we smitten the earth with our bodies, nor have we been left famishing; blessed be God that he has let me see such a thing with my own eyes!”
“Thou sayest well, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “but remember all times are not alike nor do they always run the same way; and these things the vulgar commonly call omens, which are not based upon any natural reason, will by him who is wise be esteemed and reckoned happy accidents merely. One of these believers in omens will get up of a morning, leave his house, and meet a friar of the order of the blessed Saint Francis, and, as if he had met a griffin, he will turn about and go home. With another Mendoza the salt is spilt on his table, and gloom is spilt over his heart, as if nature was obliged to give warning of coming misfortunes by means of such trivial things as these. The wise man and the Christian should not trifle with what it may please heaven to do. Scipio on coming to Africa stumbled as he leaped on shore; his soldiers took it as a bad omen; but he, clasping the soil with his arms, exclaimed, ‘Thou canst not escape me, Africa, for I hold thee tight between my arms.’ Thus, Sancho, meeting those images has been to me a most happy occurrence.”
“I can well believe it,” said Sancho; “but I wish your worship would tell me what is the reason that the Spaniards, when they are about to give battle, in calling on that Saint James the Moorslayer, say ‘Santiago and close Spain!’ Is Spain, then, open, so that it is needful to close it; or what is the meaning of this form?”
“Thou art very simple, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “God, look you, gave that great knight of the Red Cross to Spain as her patron saint and protector, especially in those hard struggles the Spaniards had with the Moors; and therefore they invoke and call upon him as their defender in all their battles; and in these he has been many a time seen beating down, trampling under foot, destroying and slaughtering the Hagarene squadrons in the sight of all; of which fact I could give thee many examples recorded in truthful Spanish histories.”
Sancho changed the subject, and said to his master, “I marvel, señor, at the boldness of Altisidora, the duchess’s handmaid; he whom they call Love must have cruelly pierced and wounded her; they say he is a little blind urchin who, though blear-eyed, or more properly speaking sightless, if he aims at a heart, be it ever so small, hits it and pierces it through and through with his arrows. I have heard it said too that the arrows of Love are blunted and robbed of their points by maidenly modesty and reserve; but with this Altisidora it seems they are sharpened rather than blunted.”
“Bear in mind, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “that love is influenced by no consideration, recognises no restraints of reason, and is of the same nature as death, that assails alike the lofty palaces of kings and the humble cabins of shepherds; and when it takes entire possession of a heart, the first thing it does is to banish fear and shame from it; and so without shame Altisidora declared her passion, which excited in my mind embarrassment rather than commiseration.”
“Notable cruelty!” exclaimed Sancho; “unheard-of ingratitude! I can only say for myself that the very smallest loving word of hers would have subdued me and made a slave of me. The devil! What a heart of marble, what bowels of brass, what a soul of mortar! But I can’t imagine what it is that this damsel saw in your worship that could have conquered and captivated her so. What gallant figure was it, what bold bearing, what sprightly grace, what comeliness of feature, which of these things by itself, or what all together, could have made her fall in love with you? For indeed and in truth many a time I stop to look at your worship from the sole of your foot to the topmost hair of your head, and I see more to frighten one than to make one fall in love; moreover I have heard say that beauty is the first and main thing that excites love, and as your worship has none at all, I don’t know what the poor creature fell in love with.”
“Recollect, Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “there are two sorts of beauty, one of the mind, the other of the body; that of the mind displays and exhibits itself in intelligence, in modesty, in honourable conduct, in generosity, in good breeding; and all these qualities are possible and may exist in an ugly man; and when it is this sort of beauty and not that of the body that is the attraction, love is apt to spring up suddenly and violently. I, Sancho, perceive clearly enough that I am not beautiful, but at the same time I know I am not hideous; and it is enough for an honest man not to be a monster to be an object of love, if only he possesses the endowments of mind I have mentioned.”
Hear me, O coastlands, listen, O distant peoples. The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me. You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory.
Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength, yet my reward is with the LORD, my recompense is with my God. For now the LORD has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him; and I am made glorious in the sight of the LORD, and my God is now my strength! It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
Responsorial Psalm
I praise you, for I am wonderfully made. O LORD, you have probed me, you know me: you know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. My journeys and my rest you scrutinize, with all my ways you are familiar. I praise you for I am wonderfully made. Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works. I praise you, for I am wonderfully made. My soul also you knew full well; nor was my frame unknown to you When I was made in secret, when I was fashioned in the depths of the earth. I praise you, for I am wonderfully made.
Reading II
In those days, Paul said: “God raised up David as king; of him God testified, I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will carry out my every wish. From this man’s descendants God, according to his promise, has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus. John heralded his coming by proclaiming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel; and as John was completing his course, he would say, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. Behold, one is coming after me; I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.’
“My brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those others among you who are God-fearing, to us this word of salvation has been sent.”
We should cleanse our interior house, empty it out, give more room to God in it, by increasing our life of penance. We ought also to seek God with more ardor in the practice of virtue, especially of a lively faith and generous love, and of a life of silence, recollection and prayer. The more our soul is emptied of profane things and becomes a holy sanctuary, the more will it attract the Divine Guest. Penance will suppress whatever repels infinite purity; the virtues will adorn in a worthy manner the temple of so lofty a Majesty ; the calm and peace of the sanctuary and the incense of prayer will invite God to honor us with His presence and with His intimate friendship. This beginning of a preparation, which leads the soul to the threshold of mystical contemplation, does not exceed the power of our own efforts aided by grace; perhaps God, some day, by putting us through special purifications, will deign to complete our preparation, and so open to us the gates of contemplation. –‘The Ways of Mental Prayer’ written by Dom Vitalis Lehodey.
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