“True spirituality is not a search for perfection or control or the door to the next world; it is a search for divine union now. The great discovery is always that what we are searching for has already been given! I did not find it; it found me.”
Rohr, Richard. The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2009, p. 16
“It was like listening to two ancient dragons talking to each other with the help of an even older book of etiquette written by nuns.”
Pratchett, Terry. Unseen Academicals : a Novel of Discworld. NY: Harper, 2009, p. 208
Comment: Passive aggressive arguments are like this: absurd when you think about them. It might look and sound like polite discussion, but everyone knows it is petty and rank.
"Since contemplation is the union of our mind and will with God in an act of pure love that brings us into obscure contact with Him as He really is, the way to contemplation is to develop and perfect our mind and will and our whole soul. Infused contemplation begins when the direct intervention of God raises this whole process of development above the level of our nature: and then He perfects our faculties by seeming to defeat all their activity in the suffering and darkness of His infused light and love.
“But before this begins, we ordinarily have to labor to prepare ourselves in our own way and with the help of His grace, by deepening our knowledge and love of God in meditation and active forms of prayer, as well as by setting our wills free from attachment to created things.”
Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 214
Comment: I am pretty sure I know some folks who would read this and shout in their most accusatory voice, “Semi-Pelagianism! Beware!!” But I believe that Merton is not here talking about salvation and conversion. He is, rather, describing the later growth in the faith that should come to Christians as they mature. At that point the human will and effort are certainly involved.
“In fact, God seems silent, but he reveals himself and speaks to us through the marvels of creation. It is enough to pay attention like a child to the splendors of nature. For nature speaks to us about God.”
Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. Translated by Michael J. Miller. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, p. 197
“Except for the very few who are faithful and gratefully accept God’s word the majority are ungrateful, stubborn, brash, and live as if God had given us his word because we deserved it.”
Luther, Martin. “Appeal for Prayer Against the Turks” (1541) Luther’s Works Vol. 43. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969, page 220
from the epilogue of this book: "To desire the Parousia, all we have to do is to let the very heart of the earth, as we christianize it, beat within us.
"Why then, O people of little faith, do you fear or repudiate the progress of the world? Why foolishly multiply your warnings and your prohibitions? ‘Don’t venture . . . Don’t try . . . everything is known: the earth is empty and old; there is nothing more to be discovered.’
“We must try everything for Christ! We must hope everything for Christ! ‘Nihil intentatum!’ (‘Leave nothing unattempted!’) That, on the contrary, is the true christian attitude.”
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Divine Milieu. Translated by Siôn Cowell. Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2012, p. 117
Comment: Looking at this now, quite some time after I first read it, I see again how thick Teilhard’s writing can be. Or can appear. I’ve found in the little of his work that I have read that I need to take it in small mouthfuls and sit with it quietly before moving on. Also, yes, grabbing a few sentences from the end of his book and sharing them without all the underlying and preparatory thought is not the best introduction.
“Ideally every Christian should belong to a group that is small enough for individuals to get to know one another, care for and particularly to pray in meaningful depth for one another, and also to a fellowship large enough to contain a wide variety in its membership, its styles of worship and its kingdom-activity. The smaller the local community, the more important it is to be powerfully linked to a larger unit. The larger the regular gathering (I think of those churches where several hundred, or even several thousand, meet together every week), the more important it is for each member to belong also to a smaller group. Ideally, groups of a dozen or so will meet to pray, study scripture and build one another up in the faith.”
Wright, Tom. Simply Christian. London: SPCK, 2006, p. 181
Comment: Bishop Wright makes his case for small groups in the congregation, but without invoking either psychology, or sociology, or Jesus and the Twelve. It is built on a network of supportive relationships within the group. Good for most people in most places, I guess, to belong both to a small group and to a larger fellowship.
“The amazing promise of Christian mysticism is that, when God loves you, the Spirit transforms you into love; when God loves you, God gives the fullness of divinity to you and, through you, to all creation. In being called to partake of the divine nature, you are called to be loved, to love, and to be love. You thereby join in the most amazing of cosmic dances, a dance of joy and fullness, of healing and restoration, of light and rest and delight, that will give you the entire cosmos forever and ever.”
McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023 p. 118
“While it is unclear just how the Greek concept of mystery influenced early Christianity, the concept of mystery as ‘hiddenness’ appears in the writings of the apostle Paul and other early Christian mystics–even as it has an entirely different flavor from the pagan contexts out of which the language of mystery emerged. The earliest Christian mystics don’t talk about ritual secrets that only initiates can access; rather they talk about secrets that are revealed–through Christ, through the Bible, through the Christian sacraments, and eventually, through personal experiences of the presence of God.”
McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 59
"Illumination is characterized by a number of things. The basic shift in illumination is from seeing God as ‘out there’ to an experience of God present deep within our being. This goes hand in hand with the deep level of trust to which the purgative stage brings us. …
“Illumination is also characterized by increasing social concern, not out of obligation but out of a deep sense of God’s love poured into our hearts for others. Good works are a hallmark of the illuminative way, not as a responsibility or a duty but again as a response of love. What happens in illumination is a paradigm shift in our motivation. Rather than a self-referenced, self-concerned motivation for our relationship with God, our motivation becomes a heart burning with love for God.”
Mulholland, M. Robert, Jr. Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation. Foreword, Practices and Study Guide by Ruth Haley Barton. Expanded edition. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2016, pp. 110-111
Comment: Here, again, as in so many other places, there’s a two-fold balance, a breathing-in and breathing-out. Spiritual illumination happens “deep within” but implicitly and necessarily moves outward in our good works.
Pathology: the Study of a Path 