Contemplative Haven

Silent friend of many distances, feelhow your breath enlarges all of space.Let your presence ring out like a bellinto the night. What feeds upon your face
grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.Move through transformation, out and in.What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.
“Lonely Road”, Melanie [...]

Timeless sea breezes, sea-wind of the night:you come for no one;if someone should wake,he must be preparedhow to survive you.Timeless sea breezes,that for aeons haveblown ancient rocks,you are purest spacecoming from afar…Oh, how a fruit-bearingfig tree feels your cominghigh up in the moonlight.
(Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875-1926)

I inherited a copy of, “The Life of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva”, by Robert Ornsby, M.A., published in 1859. I think it may be a 1st edition, having come into my possession through my maternal great-grandparents, via a box of books I was given when my grandmother died.
This 1st [...]

“The contemplative, in his investigation of Divine things, is actuated by love for those things, and to increase this love is his ultimate purpose, as well as the firstfruits of his contemplation; in other words the theological virtue of charity is the mainspring as well as the outcome of the act of contemplation. “
“The principal [...]

“There is an inward world into which they enter who come near to Christ, though to men in general they seem the same as before….if they have drunk of Christ’s cup, and tasted the bread of His Table in sincerity, it is not with them as in time past. A change has come over them, [...]

“One of the reasons why contemplatives have always been in the minority in this world is because contemplation involves a surrender of one’s whole self, not just a period of time set aside each day for some form of prayer or meditation. It is a commitment of immense proportions and requires an eminent trust that [...]

Eleven stayed in the boat, although it was an uncertain safety.Eleven stayed in the boat, intuiting that there might be more for them outside its carefully-crafted sides, yet unable to risk those first moments of feeling nothing underneath them. Eleven stayed in the boat, reaching out their hands, leaning over the edge, as if to [...]

Now, don’t go getting your heads all in a spin; this isn’t “New Age”. It’s something I came across in a little book entitled, “My Prayer-Book. Happiness in Goodness. Reflections, Counsels, Prayers, and Devotions”, by Father R. Lasance, published in 1908, and it has the Nihil Obstat. This book is a little gem in itself, [...]

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“Wisemen” (by Kate & Anna McGarrigle)

Direct to YouTube for this video is here.
In the desert, where the stars are bright
And constellations rule your life
Long ago, three kings set out
To follow a peculiar light
What did they see up in the sky?
That made them take leave [...]

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully the thing I want to live for.” [...]