Jesus said to the crowd:
“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel
or sets it under a bed;
rather, he places it on a lampstand
so that those who enter may see the light.
For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible,
and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.
Take care, then, how you hear.
To anyone who has, more will be given,
and from the one who has not,
even what he seems to have will be taken away.”
Gospel of Luke chapter 8
Seek the LORD while he may be found,
call him while he is near.
Let the scoundrel forsake his way,
and the wicked his thoughts;
let him turn to the LORD for mercy;
to our God, who is generous in forgiving.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts.
Prophet Isaiah
Zoo day
Zoo day
Through the sacraments of the faith I am reborn by water and the Spirit into the life of Christ. God’s life is rooted in the depth of my heart as a treasure hidden in a field; a seed of life, of knowledge and of love. My ascetic efforts are aimed at ploughing and clearing the land so that the seed may grow unobstructed. I remove the other plants and seeds in order that all energy in the soil may be available to nourish the one essential seed, and there be absorbed and transformed into it. –‘The Wound of Love’ A. Carthusian Miscellany
“A sower went out to sow his seed.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled,
and the birds of the sky ate it up.
Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew,
it withered for lack of moisture.
Some seed fell among thorns,
and the thorns grew with it and choked it.
And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew,
it produced fruit a hundredfold.”
After saying this, he called out,
“Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.”
Gospel of Luke
As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” –Gospel of Matthew 9:9-13
Wrath and anger are hateful things,
yet the sinner hugs them tight.
The vengeful will suffer the LORD’s vengeance,
for he remembers their sins in detail.
Forgive your neighbor’s injustice;
then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.
Could anyone nourish anger against another
and expect healing from the LORD?
Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself,
can he seek pardon for his own sins?
If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath,
who will forgive his sins?
Remember your last days, set enmity aside;
remember death and decay, and cease from sin!
Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor;
remember the Most High’s covenant, and overlook faults.
Sirach
Achilles in Hades
A poem by A. Carthusian
Something close to nothing;
Worse: dust in sin;
This body of death, this wretchedness,
Set apart splendor,
Designated to offer fire,
A pleasing odor
Like galbanum, onycha and stacte,
And like the fragrance
Of frankincense in the tabernacle.
Consecrated to handle the Holy Things,
To offer trembling the cup of destiny.
Set apart as holy
To serve with hallowed fire
The watchful heart one flowing doxology.
Dust transfigured
In ever increasing brightness
Till like bronze mirrors our faces
Reflect his Glory whose eyes
Are flames of fire
Among the splendors of the saints…
And the LORD said to Moses, “Take sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense (of each shall there be an equal part), and make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy; [and you shall beat some of it very small, and put part of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting where I shall meet with you; it shall be for you most holy. And the incense which you shall make according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves; it shall be for you holy to the LORD. Whoever makes any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from his people.” –Exodus 30:34-38
At the mountain of God, Horeb,
Elijah came to a cave where he took shelter.
Then the LORD said to him,
“Go outside and stand on the mountain before the LORD;
the LORD will be passing by.”
A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains
and crushing rocks before the LORD—
but the LORD was not in the wind.
After the wind there was an earthquake—
but the LORD was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake there was fire—
but the LORD was not in the fire.
After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.
When he heard this,
Elijah hid his face in his cloak
and went and stood at the entrance of the cave.
1 Kings chapter 19
The preparation for listening to God is listening to others. The Statutes insist on the quality of welcome we are to offer to our brothers when we have occasion to converse with them or to relate to them; we must know how to listen to them, and understand them with both heart and mind; we are to go beyond mere appearance, and not allow ourselves to be troubled by the different ways they may have of approaching the same questions. So the Statutes give us a whole pedagogy of what it means to listen. Listening to others is not the aim of our life, to be sure, but welcoming our neighbor in this way will train our hearts to become silent, in order to be ready to receive the secret of the Other. For, in whatever circumstances, our main concern must not be just to receive some message or other, but, through the message, to discover the depth of the heart of the one who is speaking to us. If we are not able to do this with the brothers we can see, how will we be able to do it with God whom we cannot see?
These are only brief indications, but enough for you to see how this touches on the very heart of our life of solitude. This solitude does not consist in shutting ourselves away between four walls in order to cut ourselves off; or refusing to welcome others; or trying to be alone with ourselves at all costs. On the contrary, solitude is the privileged place for listening, a place of silence; so, not a place of emptiness, but of communion with a reality which cannot be expressed in words. Normally, then, it is with joyous enthusiasm that we set off to master silence and the art of listening. However, experience shows that the results often fall short of our expectations. –‘The Wound of Love’ by A. Carthusian
Inspiration received—a book, and listened to, from the Cuban poet after Mass. Replace Rome with modern civilization.
Dear Sir,
I received your letter August 29th in Florence, and it has taken me this long—two months—to answer. Please forgive this tardiness, but I don’t like to write letters while I am traveling because for letter-writing I need more than the most necessary tools: some silence and solitude and a not too unfamiliar hour.
We arrived in Rome about six weeks ago, at a time when it was still empty, the hot, the notoriously feverish Rome, and the circumstance, along with other practical difficulties in finding a place to live, helped make the restlessness around us seem as if it would never end, and the unfamiliarity lay upon us with the weight of homelessness. In addition, Rome (if one has not yet become acquainted with it) makes one feel stifled with sadness for the first few days: through the gloomy and lifeless museum atmosphere that it exhales, through the abundance of its pasts, which are brought forth and laboriously held up (pasts on which a tiny present subsists), through the terrible overvaluing, sustained by scholars and philologists and imitated by the ordinary tourist in Italy, of all these disfigured and decaying Things, which, after all, are essentially nothing more than accidental remains from another time and from a life that is not and should not be ours. Finally, after weeks of daily resistance, one finds oneself somewhat composed again, even though still a bit confused, and one says to oneself: No, there is not more beauty here than in other places, and all these objects, which have been marveled at by generation after generation, mended and restored by the hands of workmen, mean nothing, are nothing, and have no heart and no value–but there is much beauty here, because everywhere there is much beauty. Water infinitely full of life move along the ancient aqueducts into the great city and dances in the many city squares over white basins of stone and spread out in large, spacious pools and murmurs by day and lifts up its murmuring to the night, which is vast here and starry and soft with winds. And there are gardens here, unforgettable boulevards, and staircases designed by Michelangelo, staircases constructed on the pattern of downward-gliding waters, and as they descend, widely giving birth to step out of step as if it were wave out of wave. Through such impressions one gathers oneself, wins oneself back from the exacting multiplicity, which speaks and chatters there (and how talkative it is!) and one slowly learns to recognize the very few Things in which something eternal endures that one can love and something solitary (endures) that one can gently take part in. –‘Letters to a Young Poet’ by Rainer Maria Rilke
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