Posted on by Kurt Bodling

benefits of regular prayer

“The duration of prayer influences its quality, because a longer period of time helps the body assume a deeper prayer stance. In addition to this irreplaceable prolonged prayer, it is important during the day to consecrate the present moment by reciting a few invocations. One of them, the Angelus, has a long tradition in the Church. … Moreover, even in very different places, knowing that at that precise moment all are praying with the same formula strengthens our awareness of being interdependent in Christ.”

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. 64.

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good news

“The good news of mystical Christianity offers a new way of thinking about God, and especially of experiencing God. It’s good news for everyone, especially for anyone who is seeking a spirituality that is anchored in love, compassion, community, justice, and higher consciousness.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 116

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silence, worship, and noise

"Silence is an attitude of the soul. It cannot be decreed without appearing overrated, empty, and artificial. In the Church’s liturgies, silence cannot be a pause between two rituals; silence itself is fully a ritual, it envelops everything. Silence is the fabric from which all our liturgies must be cut. Nothing in them should interrupt the silent atmosphere that is its natural setting.

“Now, celebrations become tiring because they unfold in noisy chattering.” Thought 250.

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, p. 130.

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divine presence

“Since the reigning presence of God is within us, any approach to exploring the mystical life will naturally include exercises and practices such as meditation and contemplation, intended to help us become more open to the hidden (mystical) presence of God within. As worthy as such practices are by themselves they are incomplete. Our journey to divine union also needs to be nourished by participation in some sort of community of fellow seekers who are trying, as best they can, to figure out what living and following Jesus is all about.”

McColman, Carl. The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism: an Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023, p. 203.

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true character of silence

“Silence does not mean dumbness, as speech does not mean chatter. Dumbness does not create solitude and chatter does not create fellowship.”

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954, p. 78. (original German pub in 1939)

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presence of God

“God is everywhere. The purpose of meditation and prayer is to become aware of that presence and live in relationship with God. It is not so much that ‘God fills us,’ even though scripture uses that language to describe it from our perspective. God is already here. We simply enter into a relationship by being in the Presence of the One who Is.”

Talbot, John Michael. The World is My Cloister: Living From the Hermit Within. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010, page 107.

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koinonia in liturgy

“Consequently, every Camaldolese (as in deed every Christian) should focus their spirituality on Eucharist: ‘Each monk and the community as a whole are to orient their life in such a way that it is preparation for, and an extension of the Eucharistic action’.” [quoting from the Camaldolese Constitutions]

Hale, Robert. “Koinonia: The Privilege of Love.” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002, p. 102.

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stillness teaches

“Stillness teaches us restraint, and in restraint we are able to discern what appropriate engagement looks like.”

Heuertz, Christopher L. The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017, p. 172.

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choosing the harder part

“I admit that it is possible and necessary for many Christians to live immersed in ‘the world’ and all that it implies, but they are precisely the ones who ought to practice the most difficult asceticism.”

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

Comment: The medieval monastics and the hermits out in wild places have been thought of as the champions, the hard-working prayer warriors, the real ascetics giving up everything for God. Merton turns that on its head by pointing out that it is actually harder to live a Christian life in ‘the world’ amidst the noise.

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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.