Posted on by Kurt Bodling

growth in solitude and community

“There is a world of difference between primarily need-based living and engaging in the transformative energy of communal life, just as between being isolated and separate–living in fear that we are or will be abandoned–and embracing the life-altering power of solitude intentionally engaged.”

Healey, Bede. “Psychological Investigations and Implications for Living Together Alone.” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002, p. 120.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

simul justus et peccator

“We Christians affirm the communion of saints in the Nicene Creed, but I think there should be an equal belief in the ‘communion of sinners.’ We are all fully a part of both groups.”

Rohr, Richard. Immortal Diamond: the Search for Our True Self. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013, p. xix.

The Lutherans call this idea the “simul justus et peccator” (which, being interpreted, means ‘at the same time, saint and sinner’). In other words, while in this life, we are in a constant cycle of sin and forgiveness, one that moves such that we are always in both states simultaneously.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the death of self

“If your spiritual guides do not talk to you about dying, they are not good spiritual guides!” (p. 85)

Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.

Death, both physical and metaphorical, should find its way into our conversations, especially in spiritual circles, in Christian churches. There are both the death of the Old Adam in us, and the death of our bodies. Both are “real death.” Talking about either can make people feel uncomfortable, but it is so much better to have them out in the open than to hide them in the closet or under the bed.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

Saint Paul the scholar

“More than this, we may say that Paul was the heir of two civilizations. On the one hand, we have, not only in these distinct references, but in his wonderful mastery of Greek, the scholarship of one who lived in the bright after-glow of Greek civilization. On the other hand, his mind was steeped in the Rabbinical learning of his age. … Thus Paul stands forth as the ideal Christian scholar. Ideal, not only as a man who had received into the compass of his mind the treasures of contemporary culture, but who placed all knowledge and every element of intellectual power into the service of the body of Christ, the Church.”

Graebner, Theodore. The Pastor as Student and Literary Worker: Lectures Delivered at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Second, revised edition. St. Louis : Concordia Publishing House, 1925, p. 34-35.

Graebner holds up Saint Paul as “the ideal Christian scholar” because of the way he straddles two civilizations, two cultures, serving as a bridge of communication between them for the good of the Church – and thereby helping create a new civilization and culture.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

stability amid fear

“This skill of observation and discernment, which the ancients call ‘vigilance,’ has three elements. First, turn around and meet the afflictive emotion with stillness. Without a dedicated practice this won’t be possible. Second, allow fear to be present. Third, let go of the commentary on the fear. This third element is the most challenging.”

Laird, Martin. Into the Silent Land : a Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. NY: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 104.

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texts and the student

“The student who fears God earnestly seeks his will in the holy scriptures. Holiness makes him gentle, so that he does not revel in controversy; a knowledge of languages protects him from uncertainty over unfamiliar words or phrases, and a knowledge of certain essential things protects him from ignorance of the significance and detail of what is used by way of imagery. Thus equipped, and with the assistance of reliable texts derived from the manuscripts with careful attention to the need for emendation, he should approach the task of analysing and resolving the ambiguities of scriptures.”

St Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Teaching Book 3, paragraph 1. Translated by R.P.H. Green (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), page 68.

Augustine thought it important for students (especially students of Holy Scripture) to have ready access to good quality texts. This is really a foreshadowing of the Renaissance humanists’ call to return to the sources (ad fontes).

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living in the silence

“In L’Humble Présence, Maurice Zundel said that ‘silence is the only thing that reveals the depths of life.’ The great works of God are the fruit of silence. God alone is witness of them and, along with him, those who see from within, who keep silence and live in the presence of the silent Word, like the Virgin Mary.”

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017. Thought 216; page 113.

Zundel, by the way, was a Swiss Roman Catholic theologian, and friend of Pope Paul VI. He died in 1975.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

hold on for now

“You cannot imagine a new space fully until you have been taken there. I make this point strongly to help you understand why almost all spiritual teachers tell you to ‘believe’ or ‘trust’ or ‘hold on.’ They are not just telling you to believe silly or irrational things. They are telling you to hold on until you can go on the further journey for yourself, and they are telling you that the whole spiritual journey is, in fact, for real–which you cannot possibly know yet.”

Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011), page xxvii.

There were so, so many places along the Appalachian Trail which I’d read about for decades and had very clear pictures of in my mind that turned out–when I finally got there–to be nothing at all like I’d pictured them. The inner journey of the spiritual life has been surprising me like that. Heaven will no doubt turn out the same way.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

middle way prayer

“To sum up, in prayer there is the danger of falling into one of two opposite extremes. The first is ‘mythologizing’ (or making into an idol) the external forms, when prayer is reduced to the mechanical following of a rule or a method of praying. The second is the rejection of and allergic reaction toward all forms of prayer and asceticism. Those fall into this sad situation who do not know how to combine the external forms with sincerity of heart.”

Okumura, Augustine Ichiro. Awakening to Prayer. Translated by Theresa Kazue Hiraki and Albert Masaru Yamato. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1994), p. 52.

As in so very much, the middle way is the way of wisdom. In prayer it is best neither to reject formalized liturgical prayer, nor to avoid all extemporaneous and personalized prayer. Those are the head and heart respectively of prayer life. The golden mean brings together the tried and true traditional forms of prayer with the simple and sincere sighs of the heart.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

avoid the noisy crowds

“Therefore, be slow to speak and slow to go to those places where people speak, because in many words the spirit is poured out like water; by your amiability to all, purchase the right to frequent only a few whose society is profitable; avoid, even with these, the excessive familiarity which drags one down and away from one’s purpose; do not run after news that occupies the mind to no purpose; do not busy yourself with the sayings and doings of the world, that is with such as have no moral or intellectual bearing; avoid useless comings and goings which waste hours and fill the mind with wandering thoughts. These are the conditions of that sacred thing, quiet recollection.”

Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987), p. 47.