I love all of our dear dear Magisterium. I won't even try to imagine what they go through on a daily basis. I dearly dearly love our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI. Not that I don't love all the other popes. I do ! But he is has most specifically touched my spirit and my heart. I dearly love all of our religious! But this personal hero number five is for the Cistercians and Trappists. Not much is said about them and yet they are our front line prayer warriors. In silence they carry our weight in prayer more than we know.
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Ora et Labora
As Psalm 19 says, “May the spoken words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart win favor in your sight, O Lord.”
John Cassian quote:(Conferences, 10.7.2)
When all love, all desire, all zeal, all impulse, our every thought, all that we live, that we speak, that we breathe, will be God, then that unity the Father now has with the Son and the Son with the Father will fill our feelings and our understanding.
Just as God has loved us with a sincere and pure and unbreakable love, so may we also be joined to God with an unending and inseparable love.
Then we shall be united to this same God in such a way that whatever we breathe, whatever we think, whatever we speak may be God.
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Lectio Divina
You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress. --from an Easter letter by Saint Athanasius.
Lectio Divina begins with cultivating the ability to listen deeply, to hear “with the ear of our hearts” as St. Benedict encourages us in the Prologue to the Rule. We should allow ourselves to become women and men who are able to listen for the still, small voice of God (I Kings 19:12) In order to hear someone speaking softly we must learn to be silent. We must learn to love silence.
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St. Bernard of Clairvaux: “In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name depart from your lips, never suffer it to leave your heart. And that you may more surely obtain the assistance of her prayer, neglect not to walk in her footsteps. With her for guide, you shall never go astray; while invoking her, you shall never lose heart; so long as she is in your mind, you are safe from deception; while she holds your hand, you cannot fall; under her protection you have nothing to fear; if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary; if she shows you favor, you shall reach the goal” (St. Bernard).
1 comment:
Wonderful blog post, thank you. And that quote from Cassian is one of his best. No wonder St. Benedict wanted his monks to read Cassian often.
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