Illumination from the Liber Scivias showing Hildegard receiving a vision and dictating to her scribe and secretary

On May 10, Pope Benedict XVI extended the liturgical cult of St. Hildegarde von Bingen (1098-1179) to the universal Church.  Later this year he may include her in the list of Doctors of the Church.

I first became acquainted with St. Hildegard when I belonged to the now defunct BMG Classical Music Service back in the ’90s and early 2000s.  I ordered Hildegard von Bingen: Ordo Virtutum, or “Play of the Virtues” as it is called in English, a work that preceded the morality plays of the next age.  The music enchanted me, a fan of “early music”, and I ordered Hildegard von Bingen: Symphoniae; Spiritual Songs, which is a collection of spiritual songs; and 11,000 Virgins: Chants for the Feast of St. Ursula, music she composed for the liturgy of the feast of St. Ursula.

St. Hildegard was never tutored in music, yet her compositions are of the highest level and unique among all music handed down over the ages.  Her genius was expressed in a perfectly integral relationship of text and music, containing a highly poetic use of imagery and freedom of melodic formula.  Not Gregorian chant and not Palestrina’s polyphony, but still exquisitely ethereal when performed as they were written to be: in a church where reverberation allows the tones of voices and instruments to sound in space as if in eternity.  So how did she accomplish this?  The answer is: God. 

At the age of 43 while at prayer she saw a vision of tongues of flame and received an inner conviction that she should write down and share her spiritual experiences.  This was the beginning of her work as a writer, poet, composer, and philosopher.  St. Hildegard faithfully recorded everything that God gave her in prayer and thus left for us a large body of writings beneficial to mankind, including a vast knowledge of herbs and medicine as well as lives of the saints and other topics.  You can browse her music and writings here at Amazon.

After the age of sixty St. Hildegard traveled and preached throughout Germany.  Benedictine reformer St. Bernard of Clairvaux was her friend.  Both he and Pope Eugenius III affirmed her gifts of prophesy and mysticism.  Attempts to have her canonized in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were unsuccessful, but this past week, Pope Benedict declared her a saint by “equivalent canonization.”  L’Osservatore Romano explains equivalent canonization:

An “equivalent canonization” usually occurs—as in the case of St. Hildegard of Bingen—when veneration the saint is already well established in Church traditions, but for various reasons the formal process of canonization has not been completed.

Interesting facts about St. Hildegard

• She was the tenth child of a noble family and given to the Church as a “tithe.”  That is, as was the custom since the early monastic traditions of the Church, she was given to the monastery some time between the age of 8 and fourteen as an oblate, or offering to God.
• She founded two monasteries on either side of the Rhine.
• St. Hildegard began having visions at age three.  Later, she explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses.

Like many of the great saints, she was reluctant to write about her experiences in prayer.  From Wikipedia:

In her first theological text, Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias (Classics of Western Spirituality) (“Know the Ways”), Hildegard describes her struggle within:

But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. [...] And I spoke and  wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, ‘Cry out therefore, and write thus!’

Radical feminists have attempted to co-opt St. Hildegard as one of themselves, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  She knew that everything she had and did was from God, not by her own power, and that she was to glorify Him in all that she did.  It’s good that her theological writings and her works on natural medicine are gaining wider acclaim, but they must be understood in the rightly ordered context of Creator and creature.  She is a gift from God for the 21^st century who lived nearly 1000 years ago.

Here is Karen Clark singing “O virtus sapientiae”, a hymn found on Symphoniae by Sequentia.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

Welcome to this meme hosted by RAnn at This That and the Other Thing.  Visit her to read other Catholic bloggers’ posts for the week.

My offerings:

The Pope of Hope, Again where I write about the theme of Pope Benedict’s pontificate as he continues to reveal it on his recent trip to Mexico and Cuba.

A Sudden, Unprovided Death is a sad story of  how choices set us up for our final end and why we need the Divine Mercy Chaplet to be prayed by as many as possible.

St. Monica, Devoted Wife and Mother reminds us that we must pray for our spouses and children to strengthen their faith.

At Sabbath Moments I wrote about St. Benedict’s fifth degree of humility.  Still seven to go if you can imagine that.

If you want to take a quick trip to space and get away from everything, visit The Center of the Omega Nebula which is about 5000 light years away.  This goes beyond Ralph sending Alice to the moon.  Thanks to NASA and the Hubble scientists for this image.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

Awareness of God

Colleen at Thoughts on Grace hosts this meme each week.  Be sure to check out what she and others have written about their Sabbath Moments.

Moments of peace

This week the weather was just perfect for getting yard stuff done, something I find very peaceful.  I transplanted my asparagus bean starter plants.  It’s satisfying to start plants from seeds I’ve saved from last year’s crop.  I have more seeds planted so we’ll be able to stagger the harvest.

Tomato plants are thriving, too.  This week I had to tie the first two to supports.  Soon we’ll have cherry tomatoes to harvest, and the other varieties now have blooms.  Sunshine felt good while I was weeding.  I just wish this weather would last forever and we wouldn’t get the severe heat we had for a couple of months last summer.  Oh, and I found a volunteer tomato plant, too – God’s bonus for stewardship.

Spiritual reading is always peaceful for me.  As I wrote in The Prayer of Recollection, we can easily converse with the Trinity residing in our souls if we shut out external pre-occupations and concentrate on God within us.  Before spiritual reading I try to close off all distractions and visit with the Lord a little.  Then picking up my book and concentrating on its message extends into prayer, too.  St. Paul said in Col. 3:1-2:” If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Mind the things that are above, not the things that are on earth.”  Minding the things that are above lets us snatch moments of peace throughout the day.

The fifth degree of humility

I like to use Sabbath Moments to continue writing about St. Benedict’s 12 degrees of humility.  Today we hear from Chapter 7 of the Holy Rule:

The fifth degree of humility is that a man does not conceal from his abbot any sinful thoughts entering his heart, or any wrongs committed in secret, but rather confesses them humbly.  Concerning this, Scripture exhorts us.  “Make known your way to the Lord and hope in Him” (Ps. 36: [37}:5).

Father Gerard Ellspermann, O.S.B. tells us:

In the period during which St. Benedict lived, the monks who acted as spiritual fathers were generally not priests.  What he is speaking of here is a quite private affair, voluntary and healing, and what we might call “a manifestation of conscience.”  The monks of earlier times regarded this manifestation as salutary for their spiritual growth.

St. Basil, whom St. Benedict admired and quoted as “our Holy Father, Basil,” often refers to this humble avowal to one who has the grace of state and has the proper capacity.  While St. Benedict would like for this one to be the Abbot, yet the Church today, to prevent abuses, reminds superiors that they have no right to demand manifestation of conscience from those of whom they are the legitimate superiors.  But the subject is still free to gain the merit of this fifth degree of humility, and benefit by the advice he or she receives and by the humility with which the confession is made.

Now this is really rough, don’t you think? These aren’t sins we’re talking about, which are the proper subject of the sacrament of confession.  These are the faults, negligences, and omissions St. Benedict wants his monks to confess to the abbot.  They would be things like, “Today I was in a rush, bumped into the storage shelves and dropped an armful of pots.  That was the racket you heard in the refectory.”  Or, “Brother Michael irritates me.  His cackling laugh is so annoying.  I wanted to step on his toe and give him something to cry about.” Or, “I was supposed to check the vegetable garden for pests today but I didn’t feel like it.”

Do you think these examples are silly?  These are purely human actions and reactions.  Confessing them to a spiritual director allows the director to help the monk identify habits or tendencies that could lead to sin and suggest things to do to bring the monk closer to God.  It is unlikely that anyone will persevere in religious life without exercising this degree of humility.  But what about the ordinary lay person, the oblate?

Father Ellspermann says:

Practically, for the oblate, this degree of humility could be greatly helpful in dealings with a spiritual director or directress.  Even though no sin may be involved, we shall confess our situation simply and humbly, in order to enlighten our guide and to help us in facing up to ourselves.

Isn’t it significant that St. Benedict puts the entire action of revealing our state to another on a highly supernatural level?  “Make known your way to the Lord and hope in Him,” he says, quoting the psalm.  Here, too, must come a warning to our oblates that they do not go from one director to another in quick succession to find a willing ear for their problems.  Rather, seek out one to whom you are known and who will be an adviser and friend.

It’s not easy to find a good spiritual director these days for many of us who are in dioceses that have largely abandoned true Catholic teaching and have nuns who pray to the four winds and Sophia or bring out the “singing bowls” during Lent.  Don’t laugh.  It’s true where I live.  Maybe here is the case where we can use the prayer of recollection to speak with God directly about our day, confessing our faults, negligences, and omissions. 

By reading the writings of St. Francis de Sales and other great spiritual directors who helped the laity, we can get ideas of what we should do to overcome harmful tendencies.  We can listen to our spouses and children who are quick to tell us what they don’t like that we’ve done or not done. 

The fifth degree of humility reminds us that we are all unfinished vessels in need of the Great Finisher.  Being able to admit it to others is a giant step forward. No matter how difficult it is to practice this fifth degree, and it is really hard for most of us, I bet, it is one of the most important things we can do to erase hypocrisy from our hearts and overcome our foolish idea that we can get away with secret wrongdoings because no human being sees them.  Eventually our failure in virtue will manifest itself and everyone will know.  Wouldn’t it be better to prevent such humiliation in the first place?  It’s all our fault if it happens for sneaking around people in the full sight of God.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

This post was supposed to have gone up May 4, but the server wouldn’t cooperate.  I finally gave up on the IT people and stripped the part of the post causing the hiccup out.  Hence it is days late, but lives of the saints are always relevant.  My apologies.

Today is the feast of  one woman without whose prayers the Church would certainly be impoverished.  St. Monica was born in 332 in North Africa of Berber origin and when of age married a Roman pagan named Patricius.  No doubt this was deemed advantageous by her parents and his.  Herself a devout Christian, she prayed for his conversion unceasingly, even though there were times when he treated her badly.  Through perseverance and storming heaven with prayers for many years, she was blessed by God with Patricius’ conversion and baptism not long before he died.  But that wasn’t the end of her troubles.

God blessed St. Monica and Patricius with several children, among whom was a son both brilliant and rebellious.  St. Augustine fell into the Manichean heresy and took up with a woman in Carthage he did not marry, having a son by her.  To get away from his mother’s pleading he fled across the Mediterranean Sea and into Italy, finally stopping in Milan where he taught rhetoric and other classical subjects.  But St. Monica followed him to Milan and there visited the great St. Ambrose, pleading with him to set her son straight.

St. Ambrose, both brilliant and holy, refused to see Augustine at first because the young man was too headstrong.  Today we might call St. Augustine at that time, “full of himself” in love with his own intelligence and his free and easy living.  St. Monica never gave up praying for his conversion, however, and one day her prayers were answered.  Anyone who has read The Confessions of St. Augustine: Unabridged knows that God granted him an extraordinary grace not only to see his errors in faith, but also to reform his life.  St. Ambrose received him back into the Church in 387.

After remaining in Milan a while longer, St. Augustine and St. Monica decided to return to Africa.  On their way back, as St. Augustine and Monica awaited a ship at Ostia, she was taken with a fever and died, her life’s work accomplished in 387.

We can learn much from the life of St. Monica, but chiefly to persevere in prayer for the conversion of loved ones who have strayed from the Faith.  We may not be as fortunate as St. Monica was, to see family converted once again to the Christian life, but we can be sure that God hears all our prayers for the salvation of souls.

By the grace of God, both Ambrose and Augustine are two great Doctors of the Church, having powerfully influenced the world of their times and the Church throughout the centuries.  Without the dedication of St. Monica we would not have the holy example of her son whose brilliance and passion were channeled into the service of Christ.

This post is linked to Saints and Scripture Sunday at The Kennedy Adventures.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

A 37 year old man was found dead on Cox South Hospital’s grounds March 15, 2012 in Springfield, Missouri, but the story was reported only last Saturday in the local paper.  A construction worker spotted the body from a walking bridge spanning a busy street below and connecting two parts of the hospital complex.  The body lay in a cluster of evergreens near a retaining wall, between the wall and the street.  The area is usually only accessed by grounds crews in the summer months, but hospital employees and visitors who are smokers frequent the nearby sidewalk 24 hours a day. 

Initially, the construction worker thought the man might be sleeping and told a hospital security guard who didn’t take it seriously, thinking a drunk had passed out, and went back to his paperwork.  Later that day, the construction worker noticed birds pecking at the body and again reported to security.  The police were called and a sad and ironic story unfolded.

Daniel Dupree had likely been dead there for at least two months or more according to the coroner.  He died of alcohol poisoning in the arms of his mistress, Lady Vodka, residing in a nearby bottle. 

In mid-December Dupree checked into Cox North through the emergency room for alcoholism treatment and was transferred to Cox South.  After several days of treatment he was discharged. Records show he was a patient the next night, December 22, at Mercy Hospital’s emergency room several miles north from Cox, but was released that evening.  When he was found, he had a Cox patient bracelet on his wrist.  Cox only says an internal investigation found no wrongdoing, and won’t release any information because of the ongoing investigation by police who don’t suspect foul play.

How none of the smokers smelled a rotting body all that time remains a mystery as we had a very mild winter with frequent days above 40 degrees and very little snow.  Sadly, the lack of visibility from the street and the time of year worked against the discovery, but one wonders how many overpass users saw the body before March 15^th and said nothing.

Dupree was not someone many would care about anyway.  The media described him as a “transient.”  His wife, who reported him to the police as missing on December 24^th, thought he ran off with his ex-girlfriend, but when she checked with the girlfriend, she hadn’t seen him either.  The last record of anyone trying to find Dupree was December 29^th when a woman, not his wife, called police to ask for a “well-being” check.

Dupree died alone, a sudden, unprovided death we pray to be delivered from in the Litany of the Saints  during Easter Vigil.  He died this way because of choices he made and perhaps because no one was praying for him.  Every aspect of this story is sad with no hero but the persistent construction worker.  Were it not for him, Dupree would most likely still be lying under the pine tree unnoticed or ignored and unsought by anyone.

If nothing else, the lesson from this story is that those of us who take our faith seriously should pray frequently for “poor sinners” as Our Lady of Fatima asked us.  Jesus died for Daniel Dupree just as he did for every person.  Whether Dupree is with Him now we don’t know, but he is just the kind of person Jesus had in mind when He brought St. Faustina the Divine Mercy Chaplet and asked her to spread the devotion worldwide.

Have you prayed for poor sinners today?

“Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

In a previous post titled The Pope of Hope, I wrote about how the Holy Father connects well with young people and continually brings the message of life and hope in Christ.

Every pontificate has an overarching theme that responds to the need of the age and offers light in the darkness of the world.  The theme of Pope John Paul II’s pontificate was “Be Not Afraid”. We have Christ, the Son of the living God with us now and through eternity. We have nothing to fear.

“Be Not Afraid” laid the foundation for the challenges the 21st century poses to all Christians. Now, as the world becomes more and more confrontational with Christianity and we in the West see our brothers and sisters in Christ martyred in the Middle East, Africa, India, and elsewhere, we may be tempted to blend in with the politically correct zeitgeist rather than speaking the truth with a clear, strong voice and risk endangering our lives.  God gave us a new Pope and a new theme for our times as we face the powers of darkness anew under their many guises.

Pope Benedict XVI’s recurring theme is “Hope in God.” Hope springs forth from his writings and speeches. His second encyclical, Spes Salvi (In hope we were saved), speaks of the fundamental change Christianity brings to the way we live. During his recent trip to Mexico and Cuba he once again reiterated this theme.

In Mexico the Pope said on March 25:

When addressing the deeper dimension of personal and community life, human strategies will not suffice to save us. We must have recourse to the One who alone can give life in its fullness, because He is the essence of life and its author.

The Pope told President Felipe Calderon that the theological virtue of hope inspires Catholics to

transform the present structures and events that are less than satisfactory and seem immovable or insurmountable, while also helping those who do not see meaning or a future in life.

In Cuba on March 26 the Pope said to the crowd which included President Raul Castro:

When God is set aside, the world becomes an inhospitable place for man. Apart from God, we are alienated from ourselves and are hurled into the void. Obedience to God is what opens the doors of the world to the truth, to salvation. Redemption is always this process of the lifting up of the human will to full communion with the divine will.

Living as true Christians in this age of disobedience and self-will that spurns truth and embraces the narcissistic dictatorship of relativity requires remarkable charity. Most especially we must be concerned for the weak followers of Christ who have made easy compromises with the world and who may be living lives of quiet despair.

In her great concern for all who have embraced falsehood and abandoned their faith, Holy Mother Church gives us this ancient prayer for the liturgy of the Third Sunday after Easter (1962 liturgical books):

O God, Who dost show the light of Thy truth to the erring that they may return to the path of justice, grant that all who are distinguished by their profession of Christ may both reject all that is inimical to the name of Christian and follow eagerly what is fitting to it.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end.  Amen.

It’s easy to point to others, but can we not say that this prayer applies to each of us? We must always pray for one another to be the witnesses to the world that Christ has called us to be. Let us help one another to do our part to bring the truth of Christ, even to those who don’t want to hear it, in such a way that hearts will be softened to Him Who died for us. May we without hesitation be ambassadors of hope in God as our Holy Father is.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

Welcome to RAnn’s Sunday meme where Catholic bloggers share their posts for the week.  Visit This That and the Other Thing for other good reads.

I have server problems that IT guys have to fix on Monday.  Apparently odd things happen with WordPress and servers at times.  The post I wrote on St. Monica for Friday made my dashboard dysfunctional for that post only, but I didn’t know that until my admin guy found the problem today.  Because of this I have only two posts to share this week, but you can read about St. Monica next week.

Mike Wallace Interview with Margaret Sanger (Excerpts) contains my thoughts on the video clip.

The Life of Prayer contains the answer concerning how to pray always.

† † †

No, this isn’t a piece of modern art.  It’s the work of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope plotting the path of the Vela Pulsar.  Click on the image to learn more about it.

Fermi Epicycles: The Vela Pulsar's Path

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

A few weeks ago veteran newsman Mike Wallace passed away at nearly 94 years of age.  Over his lengthy career in news he interviewed many people of note from politicians to movie stars to leaders of various 20^th century movements.  Shortly after his death video cuts of his 1957 interview with Margaret Sanger appeared on the internet.  When you hear her views on sin, morality, and planned parenthood it is impossible, if you are Christian, to avoid seeing the hand of the Prince of this world in the secular humanism, “free love”, and abortion views she espouses.

Margaret Sanger was a nurse, but instead of bringing hope and healing to women who wanted to abort their babies, she opted for espousing the easy way out for them: killing the children.  Watch her body language throughout the interview, but especially when questioned about murder.

I think there is much hidden about this woman who was at the forefront of the culture of death movement and the women’s movement in the United States.  Her marriages and numerous affairs with men indicate something seriously awry on the interpersonal level and deep within the soul. The obvious condescension towards those Sanger deems not worthy of living is of the same face and tone many of today’s politicians, university professors, women’s movement leaders, and others present daily.  She and her truly Godless world are cold and terrifying.  One wonders just how many hoops Sanger put herself through to justify her ideas and behavior so contrary to the natural law considering her times and upbringing.  This interview also gives us a peek through the keyhole to the present acceptance of atheist Peter Singer’s ideas today.

Mike Wallace’s willingness to ask hard questions allows us to see Sanger as she really was, not as the heroine Planned Parenthood paints her today.  When you watch the clip, you will also see old-fashioned journalism in action, not the biased, opinionated, and utterly vapid posturing of today’s media personalities who don’t know the meaning of the word “objective.”

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo

Last week I wrote a couple of posts on dealing with aridity in prayer.  We might think that we are doing a poor job of praying if we don’t feel anything.  We might get discouraged and want to give up even trying to spend time with God every day.  We might also think that unless praying involves words, it isn’t really prayer. Fortunately, Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. has a few words of comfort for us beyond what I covered last week:

If God is always with us, why can we not be always in continual contact with Him?  This contact is realized by thought and love, but much more by the latter than by the former.  In fact, it is impossible to be always thinking of God, partly because the mind becomes tired and partly because our many occupations demand all the application of our intellect, which cannot pay attention to two different things at the same time.

Multitasking notwithstanding, this is true.  God isn’t something we should compartmentalize, giving Him our attention for awhile and then locking Him in a box and setting Him on the shelf until the next time we need Him.  We need Him all the time, and our relationship with Him cannot be one-sided if we are to grow in grace.

The heart, on the other hand, can always love, even when the mind is busy elsewhere; and it never grows weary of tending toward the object of its love.  Since supernatural love does not consist in sentiment, but in an intimate orientation of the will toward God, we know that this turning is possible, even during the performance of duties which absorb all our attention.  The will can strengthen this orientation of itself toward God precisely by the desire to fulfill each duty for love of Him, to please Him and give glory to Him.

How many human activities are wasted every day because the person has not willed to do them for the love of God?  How many fewer sins would be committed if the sinner stopped himself by recognizing that what he is willfully doing is pleasing himself and not loving God?  How much closer to God would we be if we made use of our bodies, through our intentions (will), as instruments of prayer?  Tending the garden, cleaning the house, repairing or building something, changing diapers, typical chores we need our bodies to do become prayer without words. Writing reports, grading papers, studying our profession, and other occupational activities also become prayer without words. This is the life of prayer.

St. Augustine wrote:

Prayer is nothing but a desire of the heart; if your desire is continuous, your prayer is continuous.  Do you wish never to cease praying?  Then never cease desiring.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

Welcome to RAnn’s meme, Sunday Snippets.  Visit her at This, That and the Other Thing to pick up other Catholic bloggers’ posts of the week.

This week I wrote a couple of posts on aridity:

Aridity (Dryness) in Prayer and Aridity and Progress in Christian Prayer.

My other post for the week is an interview with a young boy dying of a genetic disease.  A Child’s Witness to Jesus’ Love is a beautiful answer to faltering faith.

Thanks for dropping by and God bless you all.

In Aridity (Dryness) in Prayer we looked at what aridity is, the causes, and the answers St. Teresa of Avila recommends.  No matter which way we look at it, suffering through aridity is not pleasant, often discouraging, and very frustrating until we learn to submit to this cross God lays on us for our own good.

Before enduring aridity our hearts were on fire.  We loved thinking of God, reading about God, seeking Him in the Bible, and listening for His inspiration in our souls.  Either suddenly or gradually, we lose the ease of meditation or affectionate conversation with God; our hearts are cold and we become frightened that God has left us alone.  What is He doing?

The grace of aridity

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D., tells us that God is working in our souls, granting us the “grace of purification and progress in the ways of prayer.”  In #155 of Divine Intimacy he writes:

In fact, by means of aridity, the Lord intends to free it [the soul] from childish feelings and to raise it to the purer, firmer level of the will.  When it was experiencing so much comfort in prayer, the soul, unknown to itself, was becoming somewhat attached to these sensible consolations.  Hence it loved and sought prayer not purely for God, but also a little for itself.

Now, deprived of all attraction for prayer, the soul will henceforth learn to apply itself to it solely to give pleasure to the Lord. [True love where the lover is not looking for personal advantage but only seeking to give itself entirely to the beloved.]  Furthermore, finding no help in beautiful thoughts and sweet emotions, it will learn to walk by strength of will alone, exercising itself in acts of faith and love which, it is true, are wholly arid, but are all the more meritorious because they are more voluntary.  In this way, its love for God will become purer, because it is more disinterested; and stronger, because it is more voluntary.

Progress in humility

Through aridity, the soul also makes progress in humility.  The inability to meditate, to fix its attention, to awaken good sentiments in its heart — all these convince the soul more and more of its nothingness.  This state makes it realize, without effort or reasoning, that apart from God’s help, it can really do nothing. Thus, little by little, that high opinion of self, that feeling of confidence in its own strength, which had more or less secretly insinuated itself into the soul when all was easy and pleasant in prayer, now vanishes.

At the same time, seeing how poor and wretched it is in the presence of God, there is born in the soul a feeling of more profound respect and greater reverence before the infinite majesty of God. When it could speak heart to heart with Him in prayer, the soul may have forgotten somewhat the infinite distance which always separates God from His creature.  It is true that God wants us to act toward Him with great confidence and He invites us in thousands of ways to His intimacy; however, He always remains the inaccessible one, and we, nothingness and misery.

It is very precious, this feeling of greater reverence which ripens in the soul through the experience of its own nothingness, and which always, even in moments of the greatest loving intimacy, will permit it to approach God with true humility of heart.

If, therefore, during the time of prayer we can do nothing but humble ourselves before God, by recognizing our own nothingness and showing Him our impotence, our incapacity, yes, even offering God this very nothingness in adoration of His infinite majesty, we will have made very good use of our time.

These words of advice apply also to fulfilling our obligation to attend Holy Mass, too.  We may not feel motivated to attend as we ought.  Even receiving Jesus in the Holy Eucharist may not attract us.  We feel bored or empty, distractions hammering at our consciousness.  We consider that we are getting nothing out of the Mass, and are tempted to skip church on Sundays and holy days of obligation.  “What’s the use?” we may think.  Yet if we make ourselves attend (the act of the will) and spend that time acknowledging the impossibility of our doing good or behaving rightly toward Him without His grace while offering ourselves unreservedly to Him, we will have used our will well in overcoming the tyranny of our feelings.

We may have a lengthy battle on our hands both when praying the Mass or in private prayer as God bends our stiff necks to conform us to His will and purifies us to such an extent that His love shines from our faces.  Hence the great value of the Divine Mercy prayer, “Jesus, I trust in You.”  Sometimes that is all we can say to our God who seems far away and whom we are pursuing with all our will while our feelings rebel.  Sometimes that is all we need to say.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

This is a child Margaret Sanger would say should never have been born.  What a loss to the world had he never been a part of it!  “He always has His arms outstretched to me.” HT Patheos.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

Desert Landscape

The road of spiritual growth is a bumpy one marked by initial fervor when we convert (or re-convert), finding Him for the first time, or turning to the Lord anew after falling into patterns of sin. This beautiful fervor fills us with energy to “do” for Jesus and to pray often with a joyful heart.  We can hardly contain ourselves and want everyone we meet to know God as we are experiencing Him, having the same joy in His forgiveness, love and mercy as we do.  After some time in this state, we may experience a diminishing of this spontaneous, sensible fervor and think that something is wrong with us.  Maybe, and maybe not.

Causes of aridity

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. writes in #153 of Divine Intimacy:

…there comes a time when the soul is deprived of all sensible consolation.  This suppression of sensible devotion is the state of aridity, which may have various causes.

Sometimes it is the result of infidelity on the part of those who little by little have become lax, allowing themselves many slight satisfactions and pleasures and giving in to their curiosity, selfishness, or pride — which they had previously renounced.

Satan knows exactly how to get to each one of us to destroy the spiritual good we’ve attained through mortification and penance.  He is a spirit with a superior intellect and his fallen angel minions are no less brilliant in helping us seduce ourselves into lukewarmness and a love affair with the vanities of the world. Before we know it, the slack we’ve cut for ourselves, often going unnoticed, causes us to fall back into deliberate sin and indifference to God.  One day we wake up startled at our state of heart: prayer seems too hard, boring, and unsatisfying.  We don’t “feel” anything and God seems far away.

Father Gabriel goes on to say:

On the other hand, aridity sometimes arises from physical or moral causes which are entirely independent of ourselves: indisposition, illness, fatigue, or depression caused by troublesome preoccupations or excessive work.  These are things which can make all feeling of spiritual consolation disappear, and this often occurs with no way of remedying it.

It is a trial which may last a long time [Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta experienced it for nearly her whole life after founding the Missionaries of Charity, and St. Teresa of Avila suffered eighteen years of aridity before once again being given joy in prayer], but one in which we must, with good reason, see the hand of God which disposes everything for our good, and realize that He cannot fail to give us the grace necessary to profit by our suffering.

The answer to aridity

Although not feeling any consolation nor experiencing any attraction for prayer, the soul should apply itself to it through duty, while trying by some ingenuity to remedy its own powerlessness.  St. Teresa of Jesus [Avila] says that “anyone who cannot make mental prayer should turn to vocal prayer, or reading, or colloquies with God, but should never fail to consecrate to prayer the time set apart for it” (Way, 18).

If, in spite of everything, the soul does not succeed in moving its heart, let it love God by the will alone. This requires a great effort, but by it this faculty is strengthened.  Almost without realizing it, the soul is made capable of a more active, generous love.  This love will be deprived of feeling, it is true, but we must remember that the substance of love does not consist in feeling, but in willing to give pleasure at any cost, to the person loved. [For me, this is the money quote.]

One who, in order to please God, perseveres in prayer although he finds not consolation in it, but rather repugnance, gives Him a beautiful proof of true love.  Progress in the spiritual life is not measured by the consolation the soul feels; for this is unnecessary, since true devotion consists solely in the promptness of the will in God’s service. [Another money quote.] The will can be very prompt and firmly resolved to serve God, although at the same time it is arid and even forced to struggle against its natural repugnance.

If we are doing all we can to live the Gospel, mortify ourselves to control our unruly passions, and devote regular times daily to prayer even if prayer doesn’t satisfy our senses; and if we humbly submit ourselves to His will in our lives, we are behaving in a loving way toward God.  Is that not, after all, the most important thing?

The worst thing we can do is to abandon prayer because we don’t get our shot of good feelings from it.  In that case, praying has become about us and not about God.  Is that love or narcissism?

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

Thanks to RAnn at This That and the Other Thing we have this fun Sunday meme where we can enjoy other Catholic bloggers’ posts.  Be sure to visit her and join us all.

This has been a challenging week health-wise so I’ve only gotten two posts done.  Both are on prayer:

Knowing Him Intuitively and The Prayer of Recollection, both leaning on meditations from Divine Intimacy and the writings of St. Teresa of Avila.  If you’re like me, you are always looking to do a better job of praying.

Click on the image of the Ring Nebula for more information.  It looks like a lovely rose with a blue center to me. Looking at NASA images of the universe is rather like when we were children and gazed at cloud formations.  I was then and remain now in awe of the God who created them.

The Ring Nebula

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)

April 21, 2012

Any true Christian seeks an ever deeper relationship with God.  Prayer is the means by which we deepen that relationship. The recognized expert on prayer, St. Teresa of Avila, writes of various types of prayer, one being the prayer of recollection. With all our worldly concerns and the necessity of living up to the demands of our state in life, we might be tempted to just throw our hands up in the air and give up on praying any better than we currently do now, and maybe giving up entirely.  Fortunately, St. Teresa shows us that prayer is possible no matter what, and the prayer of recollection could just be the right thing to cultivate in this crazy, noisy world.

In meditation #152 of Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Every Day of the Liturgical Year Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. writes:

The prayer of recollection consists in the realization of this great truth: God is in me, my soul is His temple; I recollect myself in the intimacy of this temple to adore Him, love Him, and unite myself to Him…

The soul who has the sense of the presence of God within it, possesses one of the most efficacious means of making prayer.  “Do you believe,” says St. Teresa of Jesus, “that it is of little importance for a soul who is easily distracted, to understand this truth [that God is in it] and to know that, in order to speak with its heavenly Father and to enjoy His company it does not have to go up to heaven or even to raise its voice?  No matter how softly it speaks, He always hears it, because He is so near.  It does not need wings to go to contemplate Him in itself” (The Way of Perfection, 28).

These are some of the most comforting words I’ve read on prayer, especially since I’m a person whose mind is regularly spinning and bouncing off one thought to another and it takes awhile to become quiet and focus on God.

St. Teresa tells us that recollection is the highest form of active prayer and that we can make a habit of it.  She reduces what we must do to two things: “The soul collects together all its faculties and enters within itself to be with its God” (ibid. 28).  She says,

Our senses, imagination, and intellect tend spontaneously toward exterior things, on which they are dispersed; therefore, the soul, by a prolonged, resolute act of the will, ought to withdraw them from these exterior things in order to concentrate them on interior things — in this little heaven of the soul where the Blessed Trinity dwells.  This exercise, especially in the beginning, requires effort and energy and it will not be easy at first….let the soul try to cultivate the habit, despite the fatigue entailed in recollecting itself and overcoming the body which is trying to reclaim its rights.

Right here I can see the connection between subduing the body through mortification and self-denial as we do in Lent and at other times of the year, and subduing the senses to the prayer of recollection.  Practice, practice, practice puts us in the right frame of mind to pray well.  Father Gabriel writes:

Little by little, “as a reward for the violence which it has previously done to itself” (ibid.), recollection will become easy and delightful; the senses will obey promptly; and even if the soul is not entirely free from distractions, it will not be so hard to overcome them….

Thanks be to God for that!

“Those who are able to shut themselves up in this way within this little heaven of the soul, where dwells the Maker of heaven and earth…may be sure that they are walking on an excellent road and will come without fail to drink of the water of the fountain” (ibid.).

The more I read St. Teresa of Avila on prayer, the more important I believe it is to make a little time each day to quiet ourselves and rediscover that we are not alone. The three Divine Persons of the Blessed Trinity are with us.  However difficult our lives may be, whatever challenges we face, however strained our emotions, withdrawing from the world into our souls to converse with God is something we can do, if even only for a few moments during a busy day.

Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity expresses the prayer of recollection this way:

O my God, You are in me and I am in You.  I have found my heaven on earth, since heaven is You, O Lord, and You are in my soul.  I can find You there always; even when I do not feel Your presence, You are there nevertheless, and I like to seek You there.  Oh! If only I could never leave You alone!

What a great aid to detachment from worldly things and concerns this is!  It helps us get and keep our priorities straight.  In this type of prayer we are spending time with the richest, most powerful, and most generous Being who loves each of us personally more than we can ever imagine.  He gave us life and asks us to be part of His plan for the eternal joy and happiness of ourselves and others. Who would not want to seize a few moments every day to deepen our friendship with Him through the prayer of recollection?

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever!

(Click on the link above to read why I end my posts this way.)