Showing posts with label Quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quotes. Show all posts
September 16, 2013
Humility
"Whatever we make of our life, whatever truly Christian content we give it, is still has something of the stamp of the 'me generation' on it, and we have to be humble enough to see this. This is where we begin." (Seraphim Rose)
May 22, 2013
Pope Francis's Exorcism
I saw what has been called the Holy Father's exorcism on Sunday and didn't take much note of it at the time, though inquiring minds would like to know what was in that folder. Since then, though, it's been coming back to mind. Maybe it's the strange progression of the story in the Italian media, though I have to admit that the grammar of Italian public discourse is somewhat opaque to me even at baseline.
Was it an exorcism? Spokescleric Fr. Lombardi says no. Apparently some experienced exorcists who watched said it certainly was. Another I heard speaking in private said no. In any case, as far as I'm concerned, it's none of my business. If the Holy Father knew by some means, natural or supernatural, that an exorcism was indicated and he did it, well, good for him.
What I do feel like saying, however--and this goes for both the more religious and less religious sorts of people--is that often when we get to talking about such things we don't take seriously enough that the devil is happy for us to do so, so long as our discussion, whether it be fearful or dismissive, bemused or pious, can be made to serve his purposes. The devil is happy to have us discuss things like demons, possession, exorcism, etc., so long as such conversations serve to make us dismiss religion or spiritual danger on the one hand, or to focus less on the love of God and the victory of Christ on the other. In other words, if the result of such talk is that we end up more dismissive of God and true religion on the one hand or more afraid and timid on the other, the devil wins.
In my opinion, we would do well to take Fr. Merrin's advice and be wary of demonic tactics that could be at work even in our conversations about such things:
"He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us."
But we should also remember that the devil knows well our tendency to collect shiny things even when their edges cut us, and always tries to make us think that his primary efforts are the sorts of sensational things that make for tabloid sales and 'viral' videos. The comment of Jeffrey Burton Russell comes to mind:
"The Devil no doubt has some interest in cultural despair, Satan chic, and demonic rock groups, but he must be much more enthusiastic about nuclear armament, gulags, and exploitive imperialism . . ."
(Mephistopheles, 257, quoted from Arthur Lyons, Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America)
Was it an exorcism? Spokescleric Fr. Lombardi says no. Apparently some experienced exorcists who watched said it certainly was. Another I heard speaking in private said no. In any case, as far as I'm concerned, it's none of my business. If the Holy Father knew by some means, natural or supernatural, that an exorcism was indicated and he did it, well, good for him.
What I do feel like saying, however--and this goes for both the more religious and less religious sorts of people--is that often when we get to talking about such things we don't take seriously enough that the devil is happy for us to do so, so long as our discussion, whether it be fearful or dismissive, bemused or pious, can be made to serve his purposes. The devil is happy to have us discuss things like demons, possession, exorcism, etc., so long as such conversations serve to make us dismiss religion or spiritual danger on the one hand, or to focus less on the love of God and the victory of Christ on the other. In other words, if the result of such talk is that we end up more dismissive of God and true religion on the one hand or more afraid and timid on the other, the devil wins.
In my opinion, we would do well to take Fr. Merrin's advice and be wary of demonic tactics that could be at work even in our conversations about such things:
"He is a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us."
But we should also remember that the devil knows well our tendency to collect shiny things even when their edges cut us, and always tries to make us think that his primary efforts are the sorts of sensational things that make for tabloid sales and 'viral' videos. The comment of Jeffrey Burton Russell comes to mind:
"The Devil no doubt has some interest in cultural despair, Satan chic, and demonic rock groups, but he must be much more enthusiastic about nuclear armament, gulags, and exploitive imperialism . . ."
(Mephistopheles, 257, quoted from Arthur Lyons, Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in America)
September 24, 2011
Supernatural? Perhaps.
My all-time favorite movie quote: Bela Lugosi as Dr. Vitus Werdegast in The Black Cat (1934)
April 24, 2011
Salty Ain't Enough
"Duty without piety is meat without salt, but piety without duty is salt without meat. Let pious gluttons look to it."
--Fr. F. X. Lasance, Prayer Book for Religious (Benziger, 1941)
--Fr. F. X. Lasance, Prayer Book for Religious (Benziger, 1941)
March 29, 2011
Laetare Ierusalem, et Conventum Facite
By chance or Providence I have been called to offer Mass this coming Sunday for a weekend gathering of our candidates for the Order. I've had far too long to incubate this homily, and it's edging towards the outrageous in how I imagine it.
It includes, so far:
The story of my Dad imitating and mocking the homily given at my temporary profession of vows
A famous insult from one of our friars, which bitingly plays on the distinction between being a 'poor religious' in the sense of evangelical poverty and a 'poor religious' in the sense of having delusions of adequacy
An amusing and telling complaint of a former girlfriend about my entrance into religious life
Fortunately for readers of this blog, this isn't the kind of homily that gets written down, in the spirit of the sage advice of one of my Jesuit teachers:
"It's best not to think.
"If you think, don't speak.
"If you speak, don't write.
"If you write, don't be surprised."
It includes, so far:
The story of my Dad imitating and mocking the homily given at my temporary profession of vows
A famous insult from one of our friars, which bitingly plays on the distinction between being a 'poor religious' in the sense of evangelical poverty and a 'poor religious' in the sense of having delusions of adequacy
An amusing and telling complaint of a former girlfriend about my entrance into religious life
Fortunately for readers of this blog, this isn't the kind of homily that gets written down, in the spirit of the sage advice of one of my Jesuit teachers:
"It's best not to think.
"If you think, don't speak.
"If you speak, don't write.
"If you write, don't be surprised."
September 11, 2009
So Much for the Helpful Clergy
«Non invenies sacerdotum istum ubique,» ad semetipsum ait, « qui semper tibi talia subministret.»
"You won't find a priest like this everywhere," he said to himself, "who always cares for you like this."
--Francis of Assisi in Thomas of Celano's Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul (2 Celano)
So much for the availability and helpfulness of the clergy! Ha!
Better translations welcome in the comment box!
"You won't find a priest like this everywhere," he said to himself, "who always cares for you like this."
--Francis of Assisi in Thomas of Celano's Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul (2 Celano)
So much for the availability and helpfulness of the clergy! Ha!
Better translations welcome in the comment box!
September 6, 2009
New Schedule
This morning, for the first time in my life as a Catholic, I'm going through a change of parish Sunday Mass schedule. Today I've been praying for the people in any difficulties or inconveniences the change may present for them. We used to have four Masses on Sunday at 7, 8:30, 10, and 11:30 am. As of today we have only three: 8, 9:45, and 11:30 am. I secretly thought that a change like this would be a nice chance to introduce a Mass in the Extraordinary Form, but to be honest I'm not sure if we would have the musical will to do it well.
I'm about to go out to greet the people after what is now the early Mass. So far I notice that the day is starting a lot more slowly; this morning I have had time to pray the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer, as well as have breakfast and make my morning meditation, all before 'going to work.' That never happened before!
Update 1: I can't complain about the whole thing because I got what I asked for: more time in between Masses. We don't have a Sunday sacristan; all of that stuff is done by me and the pastor. So it was not unusual to have exactly thirty-five minutes or so to greet the people at the end of Mass, recover and pack away the collection, purify and clean vessels, set out new ones for the next Mass, light candles, do one's private preparation and get vested and pray with ministers for the next Mass. So the extra fifteen minutes we have now is very welcome.
Update 2: The new 9:45 Mass--they are at Holy Communion as I write--seems to be well attended, given that this a holiday weekend. Once Sunday school starts it will be much bigger. A devout woman, ninety-three years young, collapsed during the homily. EMTs arrived quickly and she was cared for well. It is not yet known whether the new Mass schedule or the homily in question had anything to do with her falling ill. In your charity offer a prayer for her peace and healing today.
Update 3: The new schedule seems to have been implemented without any (expressed) misery or other problems. So today I am praying in thanksgiving for the folks we serve here. As I once heard a priest say at a day of recollection, riffing on St. Paul, "In the end there are three gifts that last: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is flexibility." It sure made for a less strenuous day from the parish priest's point of view, especially with the extra time in between Masses. I had enough zeal in me after it all to go hear a Missa Cantata in the afternoon!
I'm about to go out to greet the people after what is now the early Mass. So far I notice that the day is starting a lot more slowly; this morning I have had time to pray the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer, as well as have breakfast and make my morning meditation, all before 'going to work.' That never happened before!
Update 1: I can't complain about the whole thing because I got what I asked for: more time in between Masses. We don't have a Sunday sacristan; all of that stuff is done by me and the pastor. So it was not unusual to have exactly thirty-five minutes or so to greet the people at the end of Mass, recover and pack away the collection, purify and clean vessels, set out new ones for the next Mass, light candles, do one's private preparation and get vested and pray with ministers for the next Mass. So the extra fifteen minutes we have now is very welcome.
Update 2: The new 9:45 Mass--they are at Holy Communion as I write--seems to be well attended, given that this a holiday weekend. Once Sunday school starts it will be much bigger. A devout woman, ninety-three years young, collapsed during the homily. EMTs arrived quickly and she was cared for well. It is not yet known whether the new Mass schedule or the homily in question had anything to do with her falling ill. In your charity offer a prayer for her peace and healing today.
Update 3: The new schedule seems to have been implemented without any (expressed) misery or other problems. So today I am praying in thanksgiving for the folks we serve here. As I once heard a priest say at a day of recollection, riffing on St. Paul, "In the end there are three gifts that last: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is flexibility." It sure made for a less strenuous day from the parish priest's point of view, especially with the extra time in between Masses. I had enough zeal in me after it all to go hear a Missa Cantata in the afternoon!
August 20, 2009
Prayer and Poverty
I put a star next to this paragraph as I read Dumitru Staniloae's "Prayer and Freedom" on the bus today:
This is why evangelical minority--which is the heart of the Franciscan vocation--is first of all the plain honesty of the encounter with God in prayer. It is not first of all about money, or gadgets, or material security, but about surrendering oneself--the whole messy mixture of freedom for goodness and slavery to sin--to God in order to be relieved of the will to domination and coercion by which we insist on making ourselves and each other miserable, and which harden into the violence and social sins of our world.
Prayer is the reverse of the will to dominate. That is why it guarantees the freedom of man; it affirms another Freedom, and that Freedom assures freedom to the one who prays. True prayer is prayer addressed to God; it is the encounter with Freedom itself, boundless Freedom which nothing can threaten and therefore presents no threat. The Freedom desires to affirm and uphold the freedom of every person who is content to be thus affirmed without affirming himself.
This is why evangelical minority--which is the heart of the Franciscan vocation--is first of all the plain honesty of the encounter with God in prayer. It is not first of all about money, or gadgets, or material security, but about surrendering oneself--the whole messy mixture of freedom for goodness and slavery to sin--to God in order to be relieved of the will to domination and coercion by which we insist on making ourselves and each other miserable, and which harden into the violence and social sins of our world.
May 7, 2009
Dom Chautard's Stages
Today I'm just finishing up Jean-Baptiste Chautard's The Soul of the Apostolate. Since everybody loves a schema of the stages of the spiritual life, I thought I would share his:
1. Hardened in Sin
Mortal sin. Stubborn persistence in sin, either out of ignorance or because of a maliciously warped conscience.
Prayer. Deliberate refusal to have any recourse to God.
2. Surface Christianity
Mortal sin. Considered as a trifling evil, easily forgiven. The soul easily gives way and commits mortal sin at every possible occasion or temptation. Confession almost without contrition.
Prayer. Mechanical; either inattentive, or always dictated by temporal interest. Such souls enter into themselves very rarely and superficially.
3. Mediocre Piety
Mortal sin. Weak resistance. Hardly ever avoids occasions but seriously regrets having sinned, and makes good confessions.
Venial sin. Complete acceptance of this sin, which is considered as insignificant. Hence tepidity of the will. Does nothing whatever to prevent venial sin, or to extirpate it, or to find it out when it is concealed.
Prayer. From time to time, prays well. Momentary fits of fervor.
4. Intermittent Piety
Mortal sin. Loyal resistance. Habitually avoids occasion. Deep regrets. Does penance to make reparation.
Venial sin. Sometimes deliberate. Puts up a weak fight. Sorrow only superficial. Makes a particular examination of conscience, but without any method or coherence.
Prayer. Not firmly resolved to remain faithful to meditation. Gives it up as soon as dryness is felt, or as soon as there is business to attend to.
5. Sustained Piety
Mortal sin. Never. At most very rare, when taken suddenly and violently by surprise. And then, often it is to be doubted if the sin is mortal. It is followed by ardent compunction and penance.
Venial sin. Vigilant in avoiding and fighting it. Rarely deliberate. Keen sorrow, but does little by way of reparation. Consistent particular examen, but aiming only at avoidance of venial sin.
Imperfections. The soul either avoids uncovering them, so as not to have to fight them, or else easily excuses them. Approves the thought of renouncing them, and would like to do so, but makes little effort in that direction.
Prayer. Always faithful to prayer, no matter what happens. Often affective. Alternating consolations and dryness, the latter endured with considerable hardship.
6. Fervor
Venial sin. Never deliberate. By surprise, sometimes, or with imperfect advertence. Keenly regretted, and serious reparation made.
Imperfections. Wants nothing to do with them. Watches over them, fights them with courage, in order to be more pleasing to God. Sometimes accepted, however, but regretted at once. Frequent acts of renunciation. Particular examen aims at perfection in a given virtue.
Prayer. Mental prayer gladly prolonged. Prayer on the affective side, or even prayer of simplicity. Alternation between powerful consolations and fierce trials.
7. Relative Perfection
Imperfections. Guards against them energetically and with much love. They only happen with half-advertence.
Prayer. Habitual life of prayer, even when occupied in external works. Thirst for self-renunciation, annihilation, detachment, and divine love. Hunger for the Eucharist and for Heaven. Graces of infused prayer, of different degree. Often passive purification.
8. Heroic Perfection
Imperfections. Nothing but the first impulse.
Prayer. Supernatural graces of contemplation, sometimes accompanied by extraordinary phenomena. Pronounced passive purifications. Contempt of self to the point of complete self-forgetness. [sic] Prefers sufferings to joys.
9. Complete Sanctity
Imperfections. Hardly apparent.
Prayer. Usually, transforming union. Spiritual marriage. Purifications by love. Ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations.
I love how the spiritual life is at its simplest at the most miserable and the most blessed, when it has only two descriptive categories. In the middle there can be up to four!
My short experience with the care of souls has convinced me that very few of us can accurately grade our own relative sanctity or lack thereof. People either accuse themselves of being worse than they are, thus robbing God of credit, or fail to take their imperfection and misery seriously and rob him of opportunity.
I diagnose myself at a 3. But there are people in my life whom I am confident to say live at 6, and might be perhaps be even higher.
So, leave a comment diagnosing yourself and the holiest person you know.
1. Hardened in Sin
Mortal sin. Stubborn persistence in sin, either out of ignorance or because of a maliciously warped conscience.
Prayer. Deliberate refusal to have any recourse to God.
2. Surface Christianity
Mortal sin. Considered as a trifling evil, easily forgiven. The soul easily gives way and commits mortal sin at every possible occasion or temptation. Confession almost without contrition.
Prayer. Mechanical; either inattentive, or always dictated by temporal interest. Such souls enter into themselves very rarely and superficially.
3. Mediocre Piety
Mortal sin. Weak resistance. Hardly ever avoids occasions but seriously regrets having sinned, and makes good confessions.
Venial sin. Complete acceptance of this sin, which is considered as insignificant. Hence tepidity of the will. Does nothing whatever to prevent venial sin, or to extirpate it, or to find it out when it is concealed.
Prayer. From time to time, prays well. Momentary fits of fervor.
4. Intermittent Piety
Mortal sin. Loyal resistance. Habitually avoids occasion. Deep regrets. Does penance to make reparation.
Venial sin. Sometimes deliberate. Puts up a weak fight. Sorrow only superficial. Makes a particular examination of conscience, but without any method or coherence.
Prayer. Not firmly resolved to remain faithful to meditation. Gives it up as soon as dryness is felt, or as soon as there is business to attend to.
5. Sustained Piety
Mortal sin. Never. At most very rare, when taken suddenly and violently by surprise. And then, often it is to be doubted if the sin is mortal. It is followed by ardent compunction and penance.
Venial sin. Vigilant in avoiding and fighting it. Rarely deliberate. Keen sorrow, but does little by way of reparation. Consistent particular examen, but aiming only at avoidance of venial sin.
Imperfections. The soul either avoids uncovering them, so as not to have to fight them, or else easily excuses them. Approves the thought of renouncing them, and would like to do so, but makes little effort in that direction.
Prayer. Always faithful to prayer, no matter what happens. Often affective. Alternating consolations and dryness, the latter endured with considerable hardship.
6. Fervor
Venial sin. Never deliberate. By surprise, sometimes, or with imperfect advertence. Keenly regretted, and serious reparation made.
Imperfections. Wants nothing to do with them. Watches over them, fights them with courage, in order to be more pleasing to God. Sometimes accepted, however, but regretted at once. Frequent acts of renunciation. Particular examen aims at perfection in a given virtue.
Prayer. Mental prayer gladly prolonged. Prayer on the affective side, or even prayer of simplicity. Alternation between powerful consolations and fierce trials.
7. Relative Perfection
Imperfections. Guards against them energetically and with much love. They only happen with half-advertence.
Prayer. Habitual life of prayer, even when occupied in external works. Thirst for self-renunciation, annihilation, detachment, and divine love. Hunger for the Eucharist and for Heaven. Graces of infused prayer, of different degree. Often passive purification.
8. Heroic Perfection
Imperfections. Nothing but the first impulse.
Prayer. Supernatural graces of contemplation, sometimes accompanied by extraordinary phenomena. Pronounced passive purifications. Contempt of self to the point of complete self-forgetness. [sic] Prefers sufferings to joys.
9. Complete Sanctity
Imperfections. Hardly apparent.
Prayer. Usually, transforming union. Spiritual marriage. Purifications by love. Ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations.
I love how the spiritual life is at its simplest at the most miserable and the most blessed, when it has only two descriptive categories. In the middle there can be up to four!
My short experience with the care of souls has convinced me that very few of us can accurately grade our own relative sanctity or lack thereof. People either accuse themselves of being worse than they are, thus robbing God of credit, or fail to take their imperfection and misery seriously and rob him of opportunity.
I diagnose myself at a 3. But there are people in my life whom I am confident to say live at 6, and might be perhaps be even higher.
So, leave a comment diagnosing yourself and the holiest person you know.
May 5, 2009
Self Immolated, Not Self Involved
I love Peter Chrysologus in the Office of Readings today:
Each Christian is anointed into the priesthood of Christ and offers self as sacrifice to God in Christ. This self-immolation is the gift of true freedom from the misery of self-involvement and the chasing after the illusory securities and the miserable pleasures of this world.
This is our escape from the miserable self-involvement of anxiety and depression as well as from the seemingly happy self-involvement of pride and power.
"I an age where there is much talk about 'being yourself' I reserve the right to forget about being myself..." --Thomas Merton, Day of a Stranger.
How marvelous is the priesthood of the Christian, for he is both the victim that is offered on his own behalf, and the priest who makes the offering. He does not need to go beyond himself to seek what he is to immolate to God: within himself and in himself he brings the sacrifice he is to offer to God for himself. The victim remains and the priest remains, always one and the same. Immolated, the victim still lives: the priest who immolates cannot kill. Truly it is an amazing sacrifice in which a body is offered without being slain and blood is offered without being shed.
Each Christian is anointed into the priesthood of Christ and offers self as sacrifice to God in Christ. This self-immolation is the gift of true freedom from the misery of self-involvement and the chasing after the illusory securities and the miserable pleasures of this world.
This is our escape from the miserable self-involvement of anxiety and depression as well as from the seemingly happy self-involvement of pride and power.
"I an age where there is much talk about 'being yourself' I reserve the right to forget about being myself..." --Thomas Merton, Day of a Stranger.
May 1, 2009
Against the Aesthetes
I started to read Dom Chautard's The Soul of the Apostolate because of a quote from this post over on Historical Christian.
This afternoon I arrived at the quote given to me:
My emphasis. That last part sounds pretty good, right? But he is describing an error!
(pp. 142-143, in the TAN edition, 1974. ? trans.)
This afternoon I arrived at the quote given to me:
St. Paul summed up his apostolate as "preaching Christ crucified." Because he lived in Christ, and in Christ crucified, he was able to give souls a taste for the mystery of the Cross, and teach them to live it. Too many apostles in our own day no longer have enough interior life to fathom this life-giving mystery, to steep themselves through and through with it, until it shines forth from everything they do. They look at religion too much from the point of view of philosophy, sociology, or even of esthetics. They see in it only those elements which appeal to the mind and excite the sensibilites and imagination. They give free scope to their inclination to regard religion as a sublime school of poetry and incomparable art.
My emphasis. That last part sounds pretty good, right? But he is describing an error!
(pp. 142-143, in the TAN edition, 1974. ? trans.)
March 29, 2009
What Liturgists Want
hodie liturgistas hoc petere, cras vero aliud velle.
"Today the liturgists ask for this, tomorrow they want something else."
--Canon Aimé Georges Martimort, from the work of the Consilium for the implementation of the liturgical reforms of Sacrosanctum concilium, quoted in Stanislaus Campbell, FSC, From Breviary to the Liturgy of the Hours: The Structural Reform of the Roman Office, 1964-1971.
Please, please...someone with better Latin than me explain the use of the infinitive here. Or is it an error?
March 4, 2009
Believing in God
This morning I've been reflecting on the idiom "to believe in," and how it has varying senses depending on the object.
When we say we 'believe in' an idea, we usually mean that the idea is true or that it is a good idea. For example, 'I believe that life is sacred,' or 'I believe in the legal protection of life from conception to natural death.'
On the other hand, when we say we 'believe in' a person, we express a certain faith in him or her. It is a sort of confession of our belief that someone has the resources to succeed in some task or to be the person he or she is called to be at a certain moment. It often happens that someone struggling with self-doubt is encouraged by those who say, 'I believe in you.'
Belief 'in God' belongs in the second category, but is far too often expressed in the first. Even the question, 'Do you believe in God?' is usually to ask whether or not we believe in the 'existence of God.' But to actually believe in the existence of God is to confess the surpassing import of God; otherwise we are not believing in a god that it is really God. As Abraham Heschel famously put it, "God is no importance unless He is of supreme importance."
To believe in God is to believe in him in the same way we say we believe in another person. It is the confession that God has the power and will to carry out the promises he has revealed to us. As Isaiah the prophet puts it to us during Lent:
When we say we 'believe in' an idea, we usually mean that the idea is true or that it is a good idea. For example, 'I believe that life is sacred,' or 'I believe in the legal protection of life from conception to natural death.'
On the other hand, when we say we 'believe in' a person, we express a certain faith in him or her. It is a sort of confession of our belief that someone has the resources to succeed in some task or to be the person he or she is called to be at a certain moment. It often happens that someone struggling with self-doubt is encouraged by those who say, 'I believe in you.'
Belief 'in God' belongs in the second category, but is far too often expressed in the first. Even the question, 'Do you believe in God?' is usually to ask whether or not we believe in the 'existence of God.' But to actually believe in the existence of God is to confess the surpassing import of God; otherwise we are not believing in a god that it is really God. As Abraham Heschel famously put it, "God is no importance unless He is of supreme importance."
To believe in God is to believe in him in the same way we say we believe in another person. It is the confession that God has the power and will to carry out the promises he has revealed to us. As Isaiah the prophet puts it to us during Lent:
For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down And do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, Giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)
November 17, 2008
Privy Counselling
Recently I've been taking another look at the Book of Privy Counselling, in A.C. Spearing's translation. It's obviously by the same author as The Cloud of Unknowing, and is often bundled with it in editions of The Cloud. Privy Counselling is shorter and more practically direct than The Cloud, and I've enjoyed noticing what I underlined at my last reading, guessing at what must have been on my mind at the time. Sometimes I also think that the close association of The Cloud with Centering Prayer has led us to read it through that lens, sometimes to the detriment of the text.
Some of my favorite parts:
When you come to be by yourself...put aside good thoughts as much as evil ones..and see that nothing remains in your active consciousness but a naked purpose reaching out to God.
And so descend to the lowest level of your understanding (which some, on the basis of actual experience, hold to be the highest)
You are your own cross. This one reminds me of my favorite quote from St. Augustine, Factus eram ipse mihi magna questio, from Confessions 4.4.9, which I like to translate, "I became my own big problem."
The household of the spirit is marvelous, because its Master is not only the doorkeeper himself, he is also the door. He is the doorkeeper through his Godhead, and the door by his Manhood.
Some of my favorite parts:
When you come to be by yourself...put aside good thoughts as much as evil ones..and see that nothing remains in your active consciousness but a naked purpose reaching out to God.
And so descend to the lowest level of your understanding (which some, on the basis of actual experience, hold to be the highest)
You are your own cross. This one reminds me of my favorite quote from St. Augustine, Factus eram ipse mihi magna questio, from Confessions 4.4.9, which I like to translate, "I became my own big problem."
The household of the spirit is marvelous, because its Master is not only the doorkeeper himself, he is also the door. He is the doorkeeper through his Godhead, and the door by his Manhood.
October 8, 2008
Quotes
Someone passed this one on to me at a meeting last night:
From a letter of J. R. R. Tolkien to C. S. Lewis, paraphrasing Gerard Manley Hopkins.
And going from the deep to the silly, here's one from the content of last night's meeting:
Going even further afield, a quote from Federico Fellini from a few seconds of something, I know not what, I caught on TV. For whatever reason this one really speaks to me:
A painter may work for what the burning of his picture, or an accident of death to the admirer, may wholly destroy...The only just literary critic is Christ, who admires more than does any man the gifts he Himself has bestowed.
From a letter of J. R. R. Tolkien to C. S. Lewis, paraphrasing Gerard Manley Hopkins.
And going from the deep to the silly, here's one from the content of last night's meeting:
What's that thing you get on Sunday...I mean besides grace...that paper...oh yeah, the bulletin!
Going even further afield, a quote from Federico Fellini from a few seconds of something, I know not what, I caught on TV. For whatever reason this one really speaks to me:
After a certain age, the idea of dying becomes more and more present… And yet, I’m endowed with a particular psychological mechanism whereby all disagreeable things like old age and physical decay, obligations or money worries become material for a story which then becomes a film.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)