Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Holy Spirit the best teacher

“I want your heart to be stirred and guided concerning the thoughts which ought to be comprehended in the Lord’s Prayer. These thoughts may be expressed, if your heart is rightly warmed and inclined toward prayer, in many different ways and with more words of fewer. I do not bind myself to such words or syllables, but say my prayers in one fashion today, in another tomorrow, depending upon my mood and feeling. I stay, however, as nearly as I can, with the same general thoughts and ideas.

“It may happen occasionally that I may get lost among so many ideas in one petition that I forego the other six. If such an abundance of good thoughts comes to us we ought to disregard the other petitions, make room for such thoughts, listen in silence, and under no circumstances obstruct them. The Holy Spirit himself preaches here, and one word of his sermon is better than a thousand of our prayers. Many times I have learned more from one prayer than I might have learned from much reading and speculation.”  (page 198)

Luther, Martin. “A Simple Way to Pray” (1535) Luther’s Works Vol. 43. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Luther was a strong advocate of praying the Lord’s Prayer. He would have people say it several times a day. But here’s the thing: he never wanted people to spill out the words of the prayer by rote, just to count it as having been said. And we can easily fall into that when we speed through that or any other prayer.

I was surprised to read this passage a couple years ago and see where he says he might happily skip most of the Lord’s Prayer when he gets caught up in thoughts that arise out of just one of its petitions. This casts a whole different light on his directions to say the Lord’s Prayer upon rising, before meals, and at bedtime. It is really more of a comprehensive framework for prayer. Isn’t that a freeing thought?

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Martin Luther not the last word

“This is my opinion, and doubtless Christ will further enlighten and guide you within your own hearts through his Holy Spirit as to just how you should act at all times and specifically in this matter.” (page 165)

Luther, Martin. “A Letter of Consolation to the Christians at Halle” (1527) Luther’s Works Vol. 43. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

In his letter of consolation, Luther offers his thoughts and guidance, and ends by saying he is well aware that he isn’t the last word in these matters. The Holy Spirit will surely guide people in ways that Luther can’t yet imagine. You and I should have the same kind of humility when we offer our advice and thoughts to others.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the Holy Spirit is given in faith

“Faith creates godliness and drives out all sin, grants strength in sickness, enlightens in all blindness, heals all evil inclinations, guards against sin, and performs every good deed. In brief, the fruit of such faith is that never can there remain any frailty; for in faith the Holy Spirit is given, and thereby a man loves God because of the abundant goodness received from him. A man becomes cheerful and glad to do all that is good without the compulsion of the law and command.”  (page 175)

Luther, Martin. “Sermon on the Worthy Reception of the Sacrament” (1521) Luther’s Works Vol. 42. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

growth in Christ

“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.” (pp. 9-10)

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

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the Holy Spirit, mystics, and Church

“It can be said at once that the inspirations of the Holy Ghost are seldom completely at variance with the sanely traditional norms of religious societies. However the history of the saints is full of examples when those led directly by God fell under the furious censures of professionally holy men. The trial of St. Joan of Arc is a case in point.

“The life of a contemplative is apt to be one constant tension and conflict between what he feels to be the interior movements of grace and the objective, exterior claims made upon him by the society to whose laws he is subject. The tension is heightened by the realization that false mystics are always ready to claim exemption from social norms on the basis of private inspiration. And the society itself, speaking through its most articulate members, will not be slow to remind him of the fact.”  (pp. 76-77)

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003. [Merton wrote this in 1959]

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the Holy Spirit and unity

“I am sad to see how much we abuse the Holy Spirit. In their imagination and in disregard of the will that intends that we be one, some men, on their own initiative, create their own churches, their own theologies, and their own beliefs, which in fact are only petty subjective opinions. The Holy Spirit has no opinions. He only repeats what Christ taught us in order to lead to the whole truth.

“I say this in all seriousness: The absence of the Holy Spirit in the Church creates all the divisions. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God. Where the Spirit is, there is the Church.” Thought 213. (p. 111)

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. With an Afterword by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Translated by Michael J. Miller. [including some conversation with Dom Dysmas de Lassus, the Father General of the Carthusian Order at Grande Chartreuse.] San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017.

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true self – false self

“The self that appears to be weighed down by its love and carried away to material things is, in fact, an unreal thing. Yet it retains an empirical existence of its own; it is what we think of ourselves. And this empirical existence is strengthened by every act of selfish desire or fear. It is not the true self, the Christian person, the image of God stamped with the likeness of Christ. It is the false self, the disfigured image, the caricature, the emptiness that has swelled up and become full of itself, so as to create a kind of fictional substantiality for itself. Such is Augustine’s commentary on the phrase of St. Paul: scientia inflat. ‘Knowledge puffs up’.” (pp. 60-61)

Merton, Thomas. “The Recovery of Paradise.” (1959) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013.

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source of personal holiness

“True sanctity is not the work of man purifying himself; it is God Himself present in His own transcendent light, which to us is emptiness.” (p. 59)

Merton, Thomas. “The Recovery of Paradise.” (1959) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013.

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mysticism of life in Christ

“These Christian themes of ‘life in Christ’ and ‘unity in Christ’ are familiar enough, but one feels that today they are not understood in all their spiritual depth Their mystical implications are seldom explored. We dwell rather, with much greater interest, on their social, economic, and ethical implications.” (p. 54)

Merton, Thomas. “The Recovery of Paradise.” (1959) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013.

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Christianity and Buddhism

“The great difference between Christianity and Buddhism arises at this juncture. From the metaphysical point of view, Buddhism seems to take ’emptiness’ as a complete negation of all personality, whereas Christianity finds in purity of heart and ‘unity of spirit,’ a supreme and transcendent fulfillment of personality. This is an extremely complex and difficult question which I am not prepared to discuss.

“But it seems to me that most discussions on the point, up to now, have been completely equivocal. Very often, on the Christian side, we identify ‘personality’ with the illusory and exterior ego-self, which is certainly not the true Christian ‘person.’ On the Buddhist side there seems to be no positive idea of personality at all; it is a value which seems to be completely missing from Buddhist thought. Yet it is certainly not absent from Buddhist practice….” (p. 54)

Merton, Thomas. “The Recovery of Paradise.” (1959) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013.