Posted on by Kurt Bodling

freedom in prayer and contemplation

“The great obstacle to contemplation is rigidity and prejudice. He who thinks he know what it is beforehand prevents himself from finding out the true nature of contemplation, since he is not able to ‘change his mind’ and accept something completely new. … And since most of us are rigid, attached to our own ideas, convinced of our own wisdom, proud of our own capacities, and committed to personal ambition, contemplation is a dangerous desire for any one of us. But if we really want to get free from these sins, the desire for contemplative freedom and for the experience of transcendent reality is likely to arise in us all by itself, unobserved. And it is likely to be satisfied almost before we know we have it. That is the way a genuine contemplative vocation is realized.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, p. 117.

Comment: These lines are worth repeating: “…if we really want to get free from these sins, the desire for contemplative freedom and for the experience of transcendent reality is likely to arise in us all by itself, unobserved. And it is likely to be satisfied almost before we know we have it. That is the way a genuine contemplative vocation is realized.”

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

authentic motivation

“To be authentically human and Christian, the hermit’s life must aim at deepening communion with God and neighbor, even when the choice of the hermitage is initially motivated by the need to free oneself from an impossible situation in a monastic community.”

Matus, Thomas. The Mystery of Romuald and the Five Brothers. Trabuco Canyon, Cal.: Source Books / Hermitage Books, 1994, p. 30.

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results of humility

(of the humble person) “He is able to see quite clearly that what is useful to him may be useless for somebody else, and what helps others to be saints might ruin him. That is why humility brings with it a deep refinement of spirit, a peacefulness, a tact and a common sense without which there is no sane morality.”

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 100.

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misunderstandings

“It is not surprising that those who are not Catholic often have a completely wrong conception of Catholic devotion to the Mother of God.”

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 170.

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the path to Christian doctrine

"The church’s official ‘doctrine of the Trinity’ was not fully formulated until three or four centuries after the time of Paul. Yet when the later theologians eventually worked it all through, it turned out to consist, in effect, of detailed footnotes to Paul, John, Hebrews and the other New Testament books, with explanations designed to help later generations grasp what was already there in principle in the earliest writings.

“But it would be a mistake to give the impression that the Christian doctrine of God is a matter of clever intellectual word-games or mind-games. For Christians it’s always a love-game.”

Wright, Tom. Simply Christian. London: SPCK, 2006, p. 118.

Comment: It’s clear, according to N.T. Wright, that Christian doctrine is more than simply a slow development of simple statements recorded in the Bible. He says here that doctrine is basically footnotes to the Scriptural text. At least when it (the Bible) is expounded properly.

It would seem, then, that Tradition must in this light be measured against Scripture. If the teachings of Tradition are not apparent in Scripture, then they aren’t footnoting anything. Which makes no sense. Pay attention to Wright’s idea of the “love-game” in tension with the “word-game”. If a doctrinal exposition and explanation is not growing out of the love-game, there’s reason to suspect it.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the non-walking world

“In a world so full of not-walking, it feels almost subversive to set out on foot. But the mind seems most keen and able to think its realest thoughts while walking, as though the two acts were tied up in some ancient, well-worn, unspoken routine. And even then it is possible to notice a difference in the texture of one’s thoughts depending on whether you are walking with our against the flow of nearby water, a phenomenon that can likely be replicated in crowded streets of people.”

Sanders, Ella Frances. “Vázzit” in her column ‘Root Catalog’ in Orion, vol 42, no. 1 (Spring 2023), p. 96.

Comment: some people think best while walking. Some people pray best while walking. And in our world, few people walk voluntarily, it seems.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

humble contemplation

“The contemplative’s only safeguard is humility and self-forgetfulness and the renunciation of all desire to exploit the experience for any purpose whatever. What happens, happens. One accepts it, in humility, and sees it, without inferring anything or instituting any comparison with other experiences. And one walks on in the presence of God.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, p. 60.

Comment: this is probably part of the reason it seems that contemplative Christians are few and far between … most don’t talk about it, don’t write books about, don’t mount podcasts or fund-raising campaigns around it.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Jesus as the Way

"Jesus, as disciple-maker, calls himself the Way, hodos [in Greek], a road. The road is something you can walk on; it gets you from here to there. Jesus is such a path. The passing from depth to depth on the way into his heart corresponds to a passing from depth to depth in our own heart, where ‘heart’ means the core of our existence, not just the seat of the affections. We can walk on this road which is Jesus first by petitioning him, then by studying him, later by imitating him, and by dialoguing with him. But after we have practiced these disciplines for some time, if we are to enter his heart, we must get into his own consciousness.

“… So, one must push deeper and deeper into Jesus and let him illuminate deeper and deeper levels of reality within oneself. Very strange things begin to happen as this effort progresses. … The human personality of Jesus expands and disappears as one enters more and more into the interior of his consciousness, and a complementary transformation takes place also in oneself as in a mirror image. What one is transcends what one does or what one says or what descriptive traits and qualities one has.”

Bruteau, Beatrice. Radical Optimism: Practical Spirituality in an Uncertain World. Boulder, CO: Sentient Publications, 2002, pp. 94-95.

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awareness and silence

“Awareness is the eye of silence. The riddle of the Second Doorway helps us deepen this silence by training the attention not to spin commentary on the thoughts and feelings that we become aware of. This was one of the principle aims of the contemplative training in the desert tradition, and Evagrius is the real master here. He was aware that the attempt to be silent involved one immediately in the struggle with thoughts.”

Laird, Martin. Into the Silent Land : a Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. NY: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 81.

In other words, pay attention; be watchful; notice.

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cataloging creation

“The world becomes habitable as a world when its flood of appearances is sorted and cataloged.”

Griffiths, Paul J. Intellectual Appetite: a Theological Grammar. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009, p. 28.

Imagine for a moment the flood of appearances that overwhelm newborns. That’s what he’s talking about. But, of course, I like the reference to classifying and cataloging.