It is the task of the teacher to set the heart aflame with an unquenchable fire of longing ... and, to keep it burning until it is reduced to ashes. For only a heart which has burned itself empty is capable of love.
Quotations
The Way of the Ascetics
The saints speak of something they call the inextinguishable light. It is a light not of the eye but of the heart that never ceases to walk in purity and clearness. It swiftly leaves the darkness behind, and constantly strives towards the day's height. Its constant quality is to be continually purified. This is the light of eternity that can never go out, and that shines through the veil of time and matter. The saints never say that this light is given to them, but that it is given only to those who have purified their hearts in love for the Lord, on the narrow way which they have freely chosen.
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve,
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things,
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy,
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of people,
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,
I as given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for -- but everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all men and women, most richly blessed.
Essays on Woman
Life is love: love overflowing, that has no limits and that gives itself freely; love that yields mercifully to every need; love that heals the sick and rouses to life what was dead; love that protects, defends, nourishes, teaches, and forms; love that is afflicted with the afflicted and glad with those in joy; that is ready at the service of each one in order to fulfill the plan of the Beloved, in a word: the love of the divine Heart.
Letter 143
We have to be on our guard against wanting to judge for ourselves what point we have reached in the way of pure love. Only God knows this. What we recognize of ourselves, also of our faults and failings, is only the illuminated part of the surface. The deep roots are also hidden from us. God, who knows these, can purify them.
Love comes from within you. When you ask for love from one another, you miss the very source of love. When you give love to another, you find the source of love within you.
Inasmuch as love grows in you, so in you beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It
When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude...
There is really nothing you must be.
And there is nothing you must do.
There is really nothing you must have.
And there is nothing you must know.
There is really nothing you must become.
However. It helps to understand that the fire burns,
and when it rains, the earth gets wet...
Seasons of Death and Life
All of us are solitaries: we are born alone through the birth canal into the world and time, and we die alone. No one can enter our interior experience, or its continuum with the outer world we call community. Solitude is the human condition, the universal vocation to be human. It is the willingness, with Love indwelling, to go to the heart of pain to find new life and share it with the world even though you may be separated from it physically. It is from this commitment to be focused through the narrow gate of solitude that self-emptying love is outpoured, and the heart of the community, the heart of its pain, is transformed into the heart of joy.
Touch of God
Alone, in the cave that he loved so well near the summit of Mt. Subasio, Francis met God again ... Silence and solitude had become dear and sweet to Francis. As he reflected on that, he remembered a time when it was not so. In his youth, he dreaded and took refuge in the gaiety and laughter and frolicking of his friends. Always, at the edge of his consciousness, however, was the somber specter called Aloneness.
That's the way Aloneness appeared to Francis then -- a specter, a mortal enemy bearing a sickle in its hand. It was only when he finally met that specter head on, after his conversion experience, that he found the IT became HER; and then he made friends with her. She became, in fact, his best friend and constant companion.
It was a struggle of course, a struggle to be alone and to allow the pain of loneliness to be transformed into the sweetness of solitude. It didn't come easily and without countless ways in which he had to let the specter within him die. Gradually, he saw that the specter was an illusion -- a figment of his own imagining.
Now, as Francis retrieved himself from the reverie, he thought to himself guiltily, I'm supposed to be praying. Then he smiled. He knew the reverie was part of his prayer, an important part. It was through such a reverie that he had come in the first place to understand solitude for what it really was: togetherness.
Meditations
Most people agree that there is room for much more solitude than our present way of life affords. Whether the solitude is friendly or frightening, we are likely to feel in it God's presence, or absence. It is of great value to feel either ... Solitude reminds us that human interaction is rich and fathomless. Emerging from solitude, either shaken or serene, I nearly always cherish my first contacts with people, and see more clearly that what passes between us can bear meaning's heaviest weight.
The Father is Very Fond of Me
The root of friendship is prayer, because the root of prayer is presence -- presence to all that is. It is not easy to be present with oneself. We spend most of our time in a flight from prayer, which is a flight from ourselves. We can take only so much of ourselves; but it is only in a radical presence to ourselves, in a coming to say "I am", that we can be present to the One who is all that we are. Our presence to Christ becomes a compelling force to be present to others. We can know that we are living in Christ, that Christ is living in us because we are invited to share in Christ's spirit. Open your hearts to one another as Christ's heart is opened to you, and God will be glorified. Each one of us has been entrusted with a gift which is intended for one another.
Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim
I dedicate this winter day to You, as I now enter into the chapel of my heart to sit in stillness with You. May I leave outside the circle of silence all my worries and concerns for this day, as I enter into prayer. 'O Weaver of oneness and Reader of hearts, I know you need no spoken words to tell you of my affection for you. But may these words of prayer be sacraments of my love.'"
For those who listen in the stillness of their hearts, there comes a time to put what is heard into action and to stand up against that which is unjust, to live that which is beauty and justice...
Envision peace, be peace, radiate peace
The Advent of God
Is it not true that somewhere deep down in the silence of our troubled hearts, we have always looked for God's coming? Yet, in the last analysis, we need only say our yes to who we are ... we need simply to become more responsive to the secret yearning of our heart, which we often lock up but can never squelch entirely. Inasmuch as we are open and receptive, then we are truly men and women in waiting, advent creatures who allow Love to approach them and look forward to God's coming.
The Mystery of Christmas
To interpenetrate an entire human life with divine life, it is not enough to kneel once a year in front of the crib and let oneself be moved by the charm of the holy night. One needs to live one's entire life in daily communication with God, to listen to the words that God has spoken and that have been transmitted to us, and to follow these words.
Attending in readiness waiting
My soul meets yours,
Enter, Oh Holy Spirit,
Creation's Lord.
Tending in rapt devotion
Spirit's gentle touch --
Open as an infant's gaze
More insistent than any pain.
Open in steadiness attending
Creation's one and all,
Trusting Its wondrous tenderness.
Am I at least Its child?
The Oath
Paraphrased from Elie Wiesel's THE OATH, an old man describes one of the characters:
He could gamble with his own suffering, but not with that of someone for whom suffering was not a game. He knew that nothing justifies the pain one person causes another. Any messiah in whose name people are tortured can only be a false messiah. It is by diminishing evil, present and real evil, experienced evil, that one builds the city of the sun. It is by helping those persons who look at you with tears in their eyes, needing help, needing you or at least your presence, that you may reach wholeness.
Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers
I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.
And on one night when a great star swings free
from its high mooring and walks down the sky
to be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith's walled place,
with hope's expectance of nativity.
I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
guarded and loved me, though I could not see.
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth's most amazing knowledge:
SOMEONE IS HIDDEN IN THIS DARK WITH ME.
Here in time we make holiday because the eternal birth which our loving God bore and bears unceasingly in eternity is now born in time, in human nature. St. Augustine says this birth is always happening. But if it happens not in me, what does it profit me? What matters is that it shall happen in me.
The Way of the Heart
Silence is primarily a quality of the heart that leads to ever-growing charity. It is portable cell that we carry with us wherever we go. From it we speak to those in need and to it we return after our words have born fruit. And, it is in this portable cell that we find ourselves immersed in the divine silence. The final question in a ministry of silence is not whether we say much or little, but whether our words call forth the caring silence of God, the silence to which we are all called.
In the beauty of holiness have I begotten you, like dew from the womb of the morning.
Thoughts
For the blessed souls who have entered the profound union of divine life: rest and activity, contemplation and action, silence and speaking, receiving the gift of God in love and returning love by waves of thanksgiving and praise, are the same thing.
Gratefulness
SILENCE and HOPE ... they belong together. Only in the silence of hope can we find our deepest communion. 'We are all one silence', says Thomas Merton, 'and a diversity of voices'. How can we keep our ears attuned to the silence of our common hope when the divergent voices of our hopes distract us? How can we tune in to their ultimate harmony, audible only to the ears of our heart? Only by being still. Only by nurturing in our heart a stillness that grows big enough to embrace even contradictory hopes, a stillness strong enough to go beyond all hopes in hope ... Hope brings us to the core of contemplative transformation: GLORY. Glory is seed and harvest to hope, its initial spark and its ultimate blaze.
In the middle of a healing conference on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, a young Native American died of acute alcoholism. Unfortunately, it is not an unusual occurrence on Indian reservations to die of alcoholism. I was working with Matt and Dennis Linn who were in training on the reservation. We were invited to the wake that was to be held later that evening. The Linns told me what to do when we got to the tribal hall.
"When we go into the tribal hall tonight, the man will be in a casket in the front of the room with all of his grieving family around him, and nobody will be talking. The Indian people will be there. Go in, don't say a word, take the hand of each of the grieving relatives, shake it once, and sit down with the rest of the people who are there."
We sat there in silence with the family. The Native Americans sat there all night long with that family, not saying a word. Your presence speaks so much louder than anything you could say. Sometimes we talk too much, rather than remembering to "be still and know that I am God".
The deep things do not come suddenly. Let us be patient -- with ourselves. We may recognize many defects in our natures ... it can all be removed. Go on working silently. Silence and patience go together. Silence has wonderful creative power. Innovators conceive an idea but they do not go out and shout it before the world; they think silently and work quietly until they realize their ideal.
The Black Buttterfly
Peace me to together, Oh soul,
Assemblage human and holy,
Peace together the life and the prayer,
That the Current flows strong in stillness,
And a twinkle in the silence catches the breath,
Oh wonder!
The new challenge for all peoples is to broaden our sense of spiritual community, becoming fully ecumenical not only concerning whom we pray FOR, but also concerning whom we pray WITH. If humankind can begin to pray together we can begin to live together, finding new and creative ways to reduce the evils which plague our planet. But how can we pray together with integrity, when we differ so much in beliefs? The best way to being to pray and meditate together is in SILENCE. Words are not enough. In silence we can sense that we are not separate from anyone, and so we can dare to hope for peace. For silence to "work", participants must bring to it some degree of trust, love, and letting-go: a trust in the good-will of the others which moves them to join in such an expression of human caring; a love which brings a sense of heart-felt connection with the others as human beings; and a letting-go for a short time of our desperate clinging to the convictions which separate and divide us, letting these recede to the background of consciousness. After the silence, we return to deal with the same differences, but in a different spiritual climate.
Wilderness Sojourn
What I find distinct about gratitude in the wilderness is its simplicity -- the thankfulness I feel here is for what I usually take for granted: my capacity to breathe, move and see ... For the most part, gratitude here wells up unexpectedly, in the quiet corners of the day, over events small and ordinary. Gratitude is the other side of dependence on God: to take anything for granted in the wilderness seems presumptuous, blasphemous. And so, here in these naves of vaulting stone, prayers of thanksgiving begin to edge out prayers of petition.
Infinite Destiny
In moments of solitude -- awareness enables the mind and spirit to focus through awe and wisdom on a world of indisputable loveliness -- and to evince its eternity ...
Way of the Sun
Each new season evokes a resurgence of new energy, a new beginning. We know that from the darkness and deep silence of earth life, there springs and flourishes that which flowers in beauty. When we plant bulbs in the Fall, we have faith that from that brown globe rooted in decay will come a creation so charged with beauty as to seem a veritable breath of God. And, we can trust that each of our fears and problems, rooted in God-soil deep within, will bring forth blossoms in due season.
The Fire of Your Life
Just as each new seed requires a period of gestation -- a time of deep silence and solitude -- so, too, we need such seasons. "Someone wrote me recently and asked if it wasn't frustrating to have exterior solitude interrupted. Well, you learn to live out of your interior solitude. And perhaps this is one of the keys to living in the madness, the telescoping demands and resulting exhaustion of our society: to explore our own interior solitude and learn not only to be afraid of it but to live out if its self-discipline, its limitless resources and deep silence. Solitude is like a tea ceremony, the celebration of life in all its homely movements taken out of time -- the wonder of the commonplace, the mystery of ordinary life ... Solitude is being poured-out-through. We evolve toward simplicity. We dwell in the Word."
Love makes us one with God.
The Talking Stick
The basic lesson in observing is in learning to really "listen". Unfortunately, most of us whenever we are engaged in conversation with others really only half listen. And when we visit the great outdoors and attempt to get in touch with the Creation of Mother Earth -- do we really try to listen to the messages that are being expressed either audibly or inaudibly therein? Probably not. In all these areas of communication perhaps we need to discipline ourselves to learn the art of truly listening. We each need to rediscover that if we fill the silence, we cannot hear the voice of God. Once we have learned to quiet down and "center in", then we can begin to hear the voices of Creation and also that still, small voice within which can only come through when we are earnestly creating an attitude of "silence". Whenever we can actually stop our busy merry-go-rounds occasionally and seek quiet times and places -- we can then hear that inner voice of our Creator speaking to us with great love, comfort and guidance for our lives, as we listen with the ears of the heart and spirit! Inner harmony, peace and spiritual growth can take place when we learn to listen -- and thus receive the "gift of silence".
Only one who can bear silence will hear the voice of God.
The following prayer-poem was written by Ernest L. Brown III when he was a teenager many years ago. Our gratitude to Mrs. Fredi Brown, his mother, for sharing it with us:
Why do I pray? Why do I breathe?
Why does my heart propel the blood through my body?
Why, indeed?
I pray because I must ... because prayer is thought,
because prayer is the Nature of God.
What else can be compared to that peculiar comfort,
that indefinable calm that comes stealing over me when,
perplexed and confused, I have turned to God,
simply dropped my burdens and problems,
and flung myself into the Creator's protecting arms?
There is a spirit in us, I am told.
No one with human eyes may see this spirit;
no one may touch it with flesh-and-blood hands.
Yet when I pray I can feel it,
and then it may be said that spirit has talked with Spirit.
Not with words, for there is no need of words.
The spirit in us has touched, recognized and accepted the Lord.
All else has been lost, dropped, forgotten.
No need to remember, to fret and strive after remembering.
I have touched God -- not with my intellect,
my twisted straining thoughts,
not with human-trained logic --
but with something within me which is the spirit in us,
the Christ Indwelling.
Thus it is that I pray -- because I want to be comforted ...
because I want to be strengthened, directed, led ...
because I want to be healed, happy, solvent, loving, loved.
Because I believe that God can give me answers
when I have none of my own, I pray.
Tales
A shah of Persia used to sit up at night for vigils and prayers. A friend who was visiting wondered at his long meditations after the whole day's work. "It is too much," he said, "you do not need so much prayer."
"Do not say so," was the answer. "You do not know. For at night I pursue God, and during the day God follows me."
The deep silence of creation is Spirit's voice directing the people as they walk ... Their steps are firm, for Spirit guides the moccasins to tread where it is safe.
A recent meeting with nature brought a strong reminder of the beauty, unity and harmony of Creation ... a viewpoint to balance the seeming madness and greed of the present world situation:
We walked slowly and quietly through the woods seeking out the old fallen tree that a raccoon family calls home. After offering our appreciation for their unseen presence, we continued on to a moss covered mound between two trees and sat down to rest -- delighting in the Silence. Within a few minutes, tiny birds began to sing and fly into the branches all around us -- twenty-five to thirty or so chickadees, nuthatches and several wee birds unknown to us. They flitted from branch to branch coming closer and closer -- a symphony of birdsong! One of those timeless moments of perhaps three to five minutes where you hold your breath lest you discover 'tis but a dream. but no, this was real ... pure gift, grace. Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, they disappeared back again silently into the woods. One's only response could be silent wonder and great gratitude.
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all living things which are all part of one another and involved in one another.
One who knows distances out to the outermost star is astonished to discover the magnificent space in one's own heart!
The Fountain and the Furnace
Jesus wept over Jerusalem ... tears continue to be an appropriate response to the suffering world today.
The gift of tears is a sign of change, of conversation of heart. The tears that are a gift are a sign of willingness to let go, of desire to let go, and the power of God acting in response to the person's prayer of longing ... The gift of tears is a sign of self-forgetfulness, a willing nakedness, a desire that comes from within to create space for God by letting go conscious pursuit of security, power, attachment ... The way of tears, while not seeking pain for its own sake, is a willingness to be continually confronted not only by painful truth about one's self, but also seeks to know this truth on a universal level of human suffering ... The way of tears quickly proceeds beyond focus on personal self-knowledge to an orientation toward the Other ... choosing to be related to the creation.
Peace is finding the good about people and nature and showing how good these people and things really are. It is getting along with the world, no matter how much confrontation there is. We can still find peace ... Once on a school retreat I met a lot of people I didn't know well. In the past I had judged them harshly. Through discussion sessions and prayer together, I got to know these people and found they were so good inside. This taught me how important it is to get to know people, even ones we might not like.
Soul: The Marian Principle
Soul is the place of the heart. Soul is interiority and stillness and spaciousness where the attention of the heart burns, where constant desire leaps forth like flames ... If we live in the depths, our soul listens with full attention to what is happening, cherishes what is meaningful as would someone about to die who must make every decision rich with the weight of right choice. The soul of a person receives everything, tries to understand or stand under what is given while at the same time realizes that no complete understanding is possible, so it remains awed and mystified. A pure and utterly poor soul receives everything without the resistance of a craving, clinging, self-important ego. Like a Mother Teresa, it opens wide its mouth and receives every blessing so that, in turn, it can transfer those blessings to all others ... The soul, which is utterly personal, trusts with all its might in the Force of the Divine Benevolence. It trusts that the Pneuma Christ is the strongest force at work in the world, mightier than all the most crude and cruel tyrants or any other violent destroyers of human dignity. That Supreme Force has won out. We must but tap into it, and surrender to it. The chief act of the soul is surrender. Surrender emanates from a soul stilled in quiet leisure and struck with holy awe.
And the Trees Clap Their Hands
And how does one go chasing after a glimpse of the uncreated Light? The Hesychasts, high on Mount Athos, bowed their heads upon their breasts, took a deep breath, and plunged in. What they plunged into was prayer. It began with a tack with which to fix the attention. It became breath itself, an inlet for the universe to invade one's body until the entire cosmos, drawn in, heaved out, was transformed into prayer. The body's posture was important. The breathing was to be carefully controlled so as to keep time with the words. Eventually the prayer, breathed in, united with their very blood and heartbeat; breathed out, it blessed the world. And some monks claimed after a while to have indeed seen the Light of the Transfiguration, uncreated energy beheld by bodily eyes.
The Snow Leopard
The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-in-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life.
Living in the Spirit
The accumulated wisdom of centuries teaches us that God speaks to the human heart most intimately only in silence. Silence and an inner emptiness or receptivity are the strange conditions for all our relationships. Without the ability to be silent, to wait, to be receptive, all our attempts at communion become manipulative and possessive. We become frustrated because we want instant gratification. We want all of who we are to be revealed. We want to know the end of the story. We find it difficult to wait. Waiting in the stillness, is, perhaps, the hardest of all human activities. It is not only hard; it is dangerous. The act of self-emptying leaves us open to attack from other quarters ... Yet it is only in silence that who we really are begins to appear. In the end, we need not fear, for it is our own best self struggling within, longing to be free.
Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics
Throughout the ages silence has been considered a way, a discipline, by which people could refine and deepen themselves. It is in silence that our reflective ability -- and our need to reflect -- is born. In silence we grow more aware: sounds, however distant, or the absence of them, bring out the hidden parts of our personality, triggering thoughts and various fleeting phenomena in our body and attention. In silence, we perceive the ineffable, that which cannot be verbalized, cannot be made concrete. In silence and solitude our individuality is affirmed. As we cease to speak, sitting or speaking quietly, within our own hearts and mind, we confront our past actions, aspirations, our most cherished dream figures. Not only do we meet ourselves in silence, but the silence heals us as well, for it is here, in the still, immovable changeless aspects of our very own self, that we find the safety to go through our pain, and ultimately the safety to meet our most sacred, private self, the self we are at the core of our being. Thus we rediscover and renew ourselves at the heart.
Try to Live to See This
It is time to put up a love-swing!
Tie the body and then tie the mind so that
they swing between the arms of the
Secret One you love.
Bring the water that falls from the clouds
to your eyes.
And cover yourself over entirely with the
shadow of the night.
Bring your face up close to Love's ear,
and then talk only about what you want
deeply to happen.
Kabir says: "Listen to me, friend, bring the face,
shape, and odor of the Holy One inside you."
Simple prayer is above all a response to God -- a response, not an initiative. Prayer is concerned not so much with me as with God. We are invited to surrender to God even when our instincts rebel. The essential act of prayer is to stand unprotected, vulnerable, before God. That God should take possession of us is the purpose of life. We know that we belong to God; we know, too, if we are honest, that almost despite ourselves, we keep a tight grip on our own autonomy. To truly belong to God means having nothing left for ourselves, to be bound to the will of Another. If you desire to stand surrendered before God, then you are standing there; it needs absolutely nothing else. Whether you are aware of God's presence or not does not matter. Know that God is in you and with you -- now and forever.