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)
The love of parents is the most important thing that children experience in the womb, and it can overcome the negative effects of many stresses and trauma…”haptonomy”, the science of touch, teaches parents to make loving contact with their unborn child. A mother and father can communicate with a fetus by placing their hands on both sides of the womb. If they send their love especially through the hands on the right side of the womb, the child will begin to move over to the right side and curl up with its neck under those hands. If they then send their love through the hands on the left side of the womb, the child will move to the left side and curl up under those hands. In this way, the patients can carry on a loving dialogue with the child. They can do this beginning when the child is about four and a half months in the womb (or whenever it is large enough for the mother to feel movement) and until about seven months (or whenever it is too large to be able to move freely). If the parents communicate with their child in this way each day at the same time and then miss their “appointment” with the child one day, the child will begin to kick, as if protesting even this momentary loss of loving communication which it has learned to expect. –Healing the Eight Stages of Life.
Time travel prayer.
Lord please go back,
Transgress and transform,
Within eternity return to my creation and growth in the womb,
Within infinity grace a finite point,
Caress and enter my little heart and mind,
Beating anew, beating alive,
Usurp the slightest consternation with your love,
For the glory of God and salvation of souls,
Place one of your hands upon my mother’s belly,
Place your arm around my father’s shoulder,
My birth, a trinity in replication, an image and likeness,
All things created are good,
Heal my memories Lord,
Embolden the imperfect love of my parents with your perfect love,
Heal all things in need of healing,
Original sin divesting,
Satiate the burning thirst at conception,
Our Lady Undoer of Knots wrap your mantle snuggly around my mother,
Drawing her tighter into my father’s love,
The freshness of an infant before birth,
Alive, a life, a celestial creation, a son to my mother and father,
God of order,
God of might,
Omnipotent and omnipresent,
Kiss me upon the lips breathing under water within my mother’s womb,
Heal my memories Lord on into the earliest stage.
When the heart is burning with love for God,
The soul is contemplating lamps of fire,
Which enlighten all things…
Divine perfections:
Wisdom, Goodness, Mercy, Justice, Providence, Omnipotence.
The colours of the divine rainbow,
Without destroying one another…
Identified in the intimate life of God,
In the Deity,
The seven colours of the rainbow…
United in the one light…
“All these are one lamp,
Which is the Word. . . .
This lamp
All these lamps,
Give light,
Burn in all these ways.”
Living Flame St John of the Cross
The powers of the soul…
Melted in the splendour of the divine lamps….
Truly a prelude to eternal life.
“The soul is completely absorbed in these delicate flames,
Wounded subtly in each of them,
In all of them more deeply
Subtly wounded in love of life,
See quite clearly,
That love belongs to life eternal,
The union of all blessings…..
The lamps of love,
Lamps of fire and flame.”
The flame which the wise virgins must tend in their lamps,
A participation of this flame…
Canticle of Canticles
The divine love is a consuming fire.
It penetrates the soul to its depth.
It burns and consumes,
But does not destroy;
It transforms into itself.
Material fire burns wood to its innermost fibers,
Iron to its last molecules,
An image of that fire,
How feeble an image!
At times, under a specially powerful grace,
The soul that is on fire with divine love sends forth flames.
They ascend straight to God.
God is their principle
God is their end;
It is for God’s sake that the soul is consumed with love…..
St. John of the Cross compares the soul penetrated by God
With the union of air and fire in a flame,
Nothing else but air on fire…..
God by His action enters so intimately…
God deifies the purified soul.
Sanctifying grace.
Sanctifying grace a real and formal participation,
God’s inner life,
God’s own nature…
Unitive love…
The soul like a sea of fire
Reaches to the farthest heights and depths,
Filled wholly with a fiery love.
St John of the Cross Living Flame
Hardly perceptible at first,
More and more it grows,
The soul experiences an ever-increasing hunger for God
A burning thirst,
The Psalmist says:
“For thee my soul hath thirsted;
For thee my flesh, O, how many ways!”
True be attitude, (beautiful attitude)…
Those that hunger and thirst after justice;
The prelude to the life of heaven,
Truly a beginning of eternal life…
The life of grace on earth,
The seed of glory…
Too sublime for us poor mortals?
… too sublime…
Baptism: life of grace…
Must develop into eternal life…
Holy Communion increase that grace within…
More fervent than the preceding,
Too increase the love of God in us,
Thus dispose us to receive our Lord with a greater fervor…
St. John of the Cross says,
Spiritual souls that desire union,
Would attain it if they did not flee,
The trials which God sends for purification…
Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena…
“If any man thirst let him come to me and drink…
Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”
“You were all invited,
Generally and in particular,
By God’s Truth,
Our Lord cried in the Temple,
‘If any man thirst,
Let him come to me and drink’
Invited to the fountain of living water,
Grace: it is right for you,
With perseverance keep by Jesus.
Christ is a bridge,
Do not be turned away,
Contrary winds will arise,
Either of prosperity or adversity,
Persevere until you find God,
Who offers the water of Life,
By means of this sweet Word of love:
My only-begotten Son…..”
You must have thirst,
Only those that thirst are invited.
‘If any man thirst,’
‘Let him come to me and drink.’
He who has no thirst will not persevere,
Either fatigue causes him to stop,
Or pleasure distracts him . . .
He turns back at the smallest persecution…
The intellect must gaze into the ineffable love…
My only-begotten Son. . . .
A man who is full of My love,
The love of his neighbour
Finds himself the companion of many real virtues;
And then the soul is disposed to thirst:
It thirsts for virtue,
The honour of God’s name and
The salvation of souls;
Every other thirst is spent and dead.
The soul then walks securely…
Stripped of self-love;
Raised above itself,
Above transitory things…
It contemplates the profound love,
I have manifested in Christ crucified…
The heart, emptied of the things that pass away,
Becomes filled with heavenly love,
Granted access to the waters of grace.
Having arrived,
The soul passes through
The door of Christ crucified,
Tasting the water of life,
Slaking his thirst in Jesus,
Christ the Ocean of Peace.
Be mindful, in humility and resignation, that all of the benevolent aims you now have may not be carried out for want of courage once God his made you equal to their execution. At least you must consider the possibility of God’s denying you the satisfaction of doing a good work, either by a hidden disposition of divine Providence, or as an atonement for past offenses; perhaps in His wisdom, He wishes to see your human will attuned to His Divine Will, and see you humble in spirit before omnipotence itself. –‘The Spiritual Combat’ Dom Lorenzo Scupoli
The significant eyes of one, tweaking a smile, resisting a wrestle,
Humbled, allowing refreshing, kneeling, surrendering within forgiveness row,
A pew, a path, anew amidst the saturation of a touch,
Gentleness and kindness, a significant feeling one must become better,
Growing silent in speech, growing silent in interaction, allowing patience and space to fertilize,
Understanding, comprehending that which serves in prayer provides in love,
Traversing a mountain, generational sin, overcoming a past, climbing backwards into an authentic heart,
A mirror upon the mind laying bare, removing old crosses creating crosses, curses and reflective dares, stares into the unconscious,
Delegating no blame, rejecting chattering refrains, eliminating chaotic choruses, avoiding everything over and over, denouncing frigid habitual descending stairs,
It is good to know myself, to stomp upon the head of the serpent alive through my life, to delight in simplicity, to love in immensity.
… .
Why, after wounding
This heart, have You not healed it?
And why, after stealing it,
Have You thus abandoned it,
And not carried away the stolen prey?
Quench my troubles,
For no one else can soothe them;
And let my eyes behold You,
For You are their light,
And I will keep them for You alone.
Reveal Your presence,
And let the vision and Your beauty kill me,
Behold the malady
Of love is incurable
Except in Your presence and before Your face.
… .
Accepting, silencing, quieting brokenness,
Rise and walk,
Clearing a space, allowing grace,
The bridegroom away,
Getting out of the way,
An inner-chamber creating pace,
Permanent patches, shrunken cloth in a new garment,
Avoiding tattering and being torn,
Cleansing tears,
New wine in new wineskins,
Counting authenticity one moment at a time,
Passing through mind, body, and spirit,
Prayerfully learning, discernment a gift,
Touch and taste the Presence,
Breathing, being, peace, infinitesimal, immense,
Doing nothing, not even non-doing,
Releasing while increasing,
Receiving while giving away,
Practice makes perfect,
Fortitude makes strong,
Patience endures,
Temperance tempers,
Understanding relieves blindness,
Virtues blossom, a flower bouquet,
Life long, eternity even longer,
Subtle, forming, painful, difficult,
God’s love carries along,
Unsure drifting in the wind,
Carefree inner-tubing down a river,
Actuality alone, together in love,
Words sprinkle like rain,
Images replace, concepts erased,
A Baroque Cathedral splendidly enduring,
A discreet petite efficacy,
An inner-city efficiency,
Phantasmagorias,
Parables,
A cross within a circle,
A Sacred Heart,
An Immaculate Heart,
A heart one’s own,
Many hearts coalescing,
The sound and the roar,
Metamorphoses,
Let’s begin again,
Unknowing,
Trusting underneath the weight of the world,
Trusting within all the longing and imperfection,
Trusting the Emptiness.
O Holy Virgin
Keep my heart as that of a child,
Pure, fresh, and wide and glad,
Transparent as a spring.
Give me a simple heart,
That does not savor sadness,
A Heart that glories when it gives itself,
A heart aware of frailty
And open to compassion,
A faithful and generous heart
That remembers every benefit
And does not cherish rancor for a hurt.
Give me a tender, humble heart,
That loves and ask for no return,
Happy to efface itself in another heart,
In the presence of your Divine son,
A heart great and indomitable,
That no ingratitude can lock,
And no indifference render slack,
A heart tormented with the glory of Jesus Christ,
And wounded by His love,
A wound that only shall be healed in Heaven.
Pere Leone de Grandmaison
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