Posted on by Kurt Bodling

our greatest sin

“Let me be quite succinct: the greatest sin of the European-Russian-American complex which we call ‘the West’ (and this sin has spread its own way to China) is not only greed and cruelty, not only moral dishonesty and infidelity to truth, but above all its unmitigated arrogance towards the rest of the human race.”

Merton, Thomas. “A Letter to Pablo Antonio Cuadra concerning Giants.” (1961) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013, p. 119.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

centering prayer origins

“The monks who developed Centering Prayer … note that this is not ultimately a technique of contemplative prayer, but rather a way of praying that helps to prepare us for the grace of contemplation, which is always a gift from God. This is a subtle but meaningful distinction.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism : an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis : Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 293.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

our cynical world

“Ours is a cynical world, shaped by pessimism, skepticism, and disdain. It’s a world where if your mother says she loves you, you ought to verify that independently.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism : an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis : Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 118.

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Camaldolese place in Benedictine tradition

“This movement joined the spirit of the early desert monastic tradition to the Benedictine way of life. ‘Based on greater solitude, silence and fasting, the Romualdian system of life imitated the ancient Egyptian anchoritism in the penitential ascetical sphere; for the rest, if faithfully referred to the observance of the Benedictine Rule. It was organized eremitism.’ ‘This reform movement within the Benedictine world was not antagonistic to Benedictinism, but it wanted to extend the influence of the Rule of Saint Benedict to those drawn to solitude’.”

Belisle, Peter-Damian. “Overview of Camaldolese History and Spirituality” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002, p. 9.

Comment: if ‘herding cats’ sounds hard, try organizing hermits! But that’s what the Camaldolese order does. Men with the vocation of solitude gather together, train for some years in spiritual disciplines and what it means to be a monk, and then can move into solitary living while still under the protective and organizing wing of the monastic order. Of course, the Carthusian order moves men into their hermitages more quickly, as I understand it.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

mysticism and the Holy Trinity

“Christian mysticism, grounded in the trinitarian understanding of God, fosters an openness to receive the gift of divine union that overflows from the loving relationships found within the Trinity. The union of God and God’s beloved creation, as understood in the Christian faith, is actually a communion, in which we are invited into the loving unity with the Spirit, with Christ, and, through them, with the infinite mystery of the infinite Creator–the fullness of the one triune God.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism : an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis : Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 141.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the word most people are afraid of

"We increase and deepen our participation in the life of the Body by the activity of our minds and wills, illuminated and guided by the Holy Ghost. We must therefore keep growing in our knowledge and love of God and in our love for other men. The power of good operative habits must take ever greater and greater hold upon us. The Truth we believe in must work itself more and more fully into the very substance of our lives until our whole existence is nothing but vision and love.

“What this means in practice is summed up by one word that most men are afraid of: asceticism.”

Merton, Thomas. “The White Pebble.” (1950) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013, pp. 9-10.

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the flight

“Paradoxical as it may seem, for Christians the flight of the alone to the Alone must also be understood as a flight of the community to the Trinity.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism : an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis : Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 139

Comment: I think what this means is that he considers the ancient description of the contemplative life (‘flight of the alone to the Alone’) still to be true. Plus, it is also true that the same contemplative life can be described as a flight of the community of believers to the community of the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

receiving, not achieving, contemplation

“Contemplation is a gift of God beyond our perception. We don’t go to it, it comes to us. It is pure union of being in Being. As God is simply I AM, so we simply ARE in him when experiencing contemplation. Contemplation happens when we stop thinking of God, and God’s idea takes over!”

Talbot, John Michael. The World is My Cloister: Living From the Hermit Within. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010, page 45.

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the contemplative life

“Contemplative life, a life characterized by solitude and prayer, which dispose one toward contemplation. Ancient and especially medieval monasticism perceived its way of life as contemplative; nuns and monks were called contemplatives. Medieval interest in the mystical life perceived the contemplative life as mystical in orientation. For some men and usually women the enclosure was seen as a necessary safeguard of the contemplative life. Post-Vatican II developments have shown an interest in a broader conception of the contemplative life for laity and religious yet one that retains the solitude necessary for living in the presence of God.”

McBrien, Richard P., ed. The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995, page 364.

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knowing creation

“But, it is important to note, close attention to creatures, as also to oneself, will bring with it an understanding of the damage to which they have all been subjected, and so it will provoke lament as well as delight. Lament is the knower’s response to damage just as admiring delight is the knower’s response to creatures being as they should be. Both are instances of knowing’s participation in the known.”

Griffiths, Paul J. Intellectual Appetite: a Theological Grammar. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009, p. 137.

Comment: “Creatures” in this commonplace refers really to any other created being – animal, vegetable, or mineral – coming across your field of notice.