Posted on by Kurt Bodling

small groups in congregations

“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.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

amazing promise

“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

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

secrets revealed

“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

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

illumination

"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.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

true self, free self

“Once you have faced your own hidden or denied self, there is not much to be anxious about anymore, because there is not fear of exposure–to yourself or others. The game is over–and you are free. You have now become the ‘holy fool’ of legend and story, which Paul seems to say is the final stage (2 Corinthians 11), when there is no longer any persona or project. You finally are who you are, and can be who you are, without disguise or fear.”

Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011, p. 134

Comment: Not having to defend, and not having to go on the offense either, means that the game is over. You’re freed from its rules, from its ticking clock, from the intrusive noise of the crowds. Your true self emerges from behind the uniform and protective padding. Take a breath. See what’s up ahead now. Enjoy!

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scholarship’s place

“Scholarship, too, both biblical and otherwise, is certainly important to the individual and to the church as a whole. It is a part of our part in responsible living before God. But it can never stand in the place of experience of the living voice of God, and it cannot remedy or remove our fallibility.”

Willard, Dallas. Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. Updated and expanded by Jan Johnson. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2012, p. 239

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a contemplative start

“The most important thing in initiating a contemplative attitude toward life is being still and open. I see it as involving various levels of relaxation and silence, the kinds of not-doing that are so essential to the contemplative life.”

Bruteau, Beatrice. Radical Optimism: Practical Spirituality in an Uncertain World. Boulder, CO: Sentient Publications, 2002, page 27

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focus on the Word made flesh

“In a time when the ‘Fatima secrets’ and the Medjugorje phenomena, not to mention the millennialism of Hal Lindsey and others, are stirring up anxiety, fanaticism, and even hysteria among simple unbelievers, we need Saint Romuald’s sober focus on God’s true, total and definitive revelation in the Incarnate Word.”

Matus, Thomas. The Mystery of Romuald and the Five Brothers. Trabuco Canyon, Cal.: Source Books / Hermitage Books, 1994, p. 103. (about facing the year 1000, as he was facing the year 2000 when he wrote)

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a source for the apophatic

“As an approach in spirituality, the apophatic tradition can be traced to yet another source in the fourth century. The monastic experience of early desert dwellers like Evagrius of Pontus gave rise to the discipline of prayer which paralleled the negative way. Living at Nitria in the wilderness west of the Nile, desert silence and simplicity taught him the relinquishment of self that accompanies the renunciation of language.”

Lane, Belden C. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 64.

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Mary and Martha

"The mystics in history have also offered different ways of understanding Mary and Martha. The fourteenth-century manual of contemplation The Cloud of Unknowing suggests that Mary represents the contemplative life while Martha symbolizes the active life. In other words, Mary stands for those who live in cloistered communities of monks or nuns, devoting their lives to prayer and meditation, while Martha represents those who live ‘in the world,’ with families and households and the ordinary responsibilities of secular life.

“… On the other hand, Teresa of Avila in her mystical masterpiece The Interior Castle refuses to see one sister as somehow more exalted than the other.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 95.