Contemplative Haven

…few are the times when I manage to contemplate with my intellect.

Very often, what happens to me then is that when the continuous thought of God, of whom I am always aware, distances itself a bit from my mind, I suddenly feel myself touched by our Lord right at the center of my soul in such a soothing and penetrating way that, more often than not, I am forced to shed tears of sorrow for my infidelity and for the tender mercy of having a Father who is so good to call me back to His presence….

It seems to me that time flies by rapidly and I never have enough for prayer. I am very fond of good literature, but I read very little both because I am hindered by my infirmities and because, after opening a book and reading briefly, I find myself so profoundly absorbed my reading becomes prayer.

[From: Secrets of a Soul. Padre Pio's Letters to His Spiritual Directors, pgs. 55-57]

In his book, “Hildegard of Bingen: Healing and the Nature of the Cosmos”, author Heinrich Schipperges writes:

A continuous “celestial liturgy” dominated Hildegard’s artistic creations. According to her, this liturgy was sung in perfect unison (una voce) and would continue forever (sine fine) with voices alternating (alter ad alterum) in an eternal responsory. Humanity and the cosmos existed in unique musical concord, bringing all people’s hearts into consonance (anima symphonialis est) and serving not only as a guide to healthy living but as the basis of an effective system of healing and therapy. All the arts were divinely inspired, “and therefore it is only fitting that body and soul sing hymns of praise through the voice of God.” [page 19]

I will be posting more later on my thoughts surrounding Hildegard’s statement that music should serve “not only as a guide to healthy living but as the basis of an effective system of healing and therapy”, but for now I would like to leave you with this beautiful artistic performance, in which I’m sure Hildegard takes great delight:

For a friend, a hard-working faith-filled loving husband and father of young children, travelling that often lonely path of a world-weary mystic.   

Struggle ensues from this union of his love with us. For him alone, without us, there would be no struggle, for he loves the Father and human beings; he is Love. We, however, are not-love, with which his love burdens itself in order to overcome it. This overcoming does not take place in eternity; the battle is fought on earth, unto the death on the Cross, within the measurable time of the Son’s life that is depicted for us in Scripture, that we see as a limited period within our time, but that belongs so much to eternity that his years on earth cannot be subtracted from the eternity of the Son. Suffering in our time unto death, the Son makes known to us that the time of suffering is transitory, that his triumph in the Resurrection is a victory of heaven over earth, a proof of the Father’s power in the Son of Man, and that we share in this victory and our present time will be conquered by imperishable time.

[The Gates of Eternal Life, Adrienne von Speyr, pgs. 24-25]

Part 3: Exploring Prayer of the Heart (Based on Chapter 28) The Prayer of Recollection

“…wherever God is, there is heaven.”

“Do you think it matters little for a soul with a wandering mind to understand this truth and see that there is no need to go to heaven in order to speak with one’s Eternal Father or find delight in Him?  Nor is there any need to shout.  However softly we speak, He is near enough to hear us.”

“All one need do is go into solitude and look at Him within oneself, and not turn away from so good a Guest but with great humility speak to Him as to a father.”

“This prayer is called “recollection,” because the soul collects its faculties together and enters within itself to be with its God.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Sister Donna makes another great connection between prayer of the heart and Mass in this segment.  When she is describing how St. Teresa of Avila says that God does not come alone into our hearts when we pray, but with all of His courtiers (the angels, the saints and those who have gone before us), she connects this to the Introductory Dialogue (just after the Prayer Over the Gifts): ”Lift up your hearts.  We lift them up to the Lord”.  We then proceed to the Eucharistic Prayer, where we pray in union with the whole Church and in communion with the saints.  

In a recent post, Ann, of Poetry, Prayer and Praise has a beautiful reflection on the Mass, a section of which I have copied and pasted here:

In so far as I have come to understand it; the Mass is both sacrament and sacrifice. When we attend Mass we gather around the table as the apostles did at the last supper, we assemble before the Lamb, we are there at the re-enactment of the sacrifice of His body and just as Mary was present at Calvary she too is present, by her Son’s side at every Mass.

In recent weeks at Mass, I have found myself thinking that not only are we present with Jesus and the apostles as at the Last Supper and also participating in a re-enactment of the sacrifice of His body, but truly with them from Passion Sunday right through to the Resurrection. From the Acclamation: “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest” (as on Passion Sunday), through to The Lord’s Supper, and on to the Memorial Acclamation: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” (the Crucifixion and the Resurrection).

So, when we receive Holy Communion, it is Christ’s resurrected Body that we receive.

I would love some feedback on this, though I know commentors are few and far between in recent weeks! Am I correct in thinking this? Is this something I should always have known, maybe did always know, but it’s just really hitting me now?

Jerome, of Living Monstrance, has a gift for taking everyday incidents and making a spiritual connection; this is the main thrust of his blog, and his posts are consistently some of the most insightful, uplifting and encouraging that I have read anywhere online.  While I do experience an awareness of the sacred and sacramental in everyday life, my mind does not work like Jerome’s, in terms of a natural spiritual interpretation arising so frequently for small, seemingly ordinary daily occurrences.  So when, in my second-to-last post, Jerome asked me, via the comments, to “unwrap” the spiritual significance within the anecdote I posted (I’m So Impulsive), I was ready to just dismiss that as not being a part of “who I am”, and that it would be an artificial practice for me, whereas for Jerome, it is a God-given way of interpreting the world.

Yet the incident stayed with me after Jerome’s spurring me on, and more specifically, the comment from Carol, who very humorously said that I should have told the driver, “You knoooow.. I hadn’t even thought about doing that, until now…”, which idea Kristin also reinforced in a later comment.

And that’s the truth of it.  The thought came from him; a thought which never would have occurred to any of us entered our minds via another person and stuck.  It reminded me of a story one of my friends used to tell.  When she was little, her mother gave her her first little box of Sunmaid raisins, and said, “Now, don’t stick those up your nose.”  Well, my friend said it never would have occurred to her to stick them up her nose, but since her mother had said it, what did she do?  She stuck them up her nose, which then entailed a trip to the emergency ward.

We have to be so careful of the thoughts we put into other peoples’ heads.  As an adult, there are so many things I wish I had never seen, never heard, never encountered.  I’m not speaking so much of the general things we all wish we had never been forced to witness, such as war, poverty, abortion, etc., but of specific thoughts and/or images.  It’s no wonder that older Catholic instruction booklets and religious aids emphasized the importance of monitoring what we watched, which books and magazines we read, and what events we participated in.  Self-monitoring is part of the walk down the path of holiness.  We must be careful what we allow ourselves to absorb, and also very careful of what we express to others.  Garbage in, garbage out.  Holiness in, holiness out.  It’s a big responsibility, and it’s ours.

But it is comforting also to know that, since we cannot live in a bubble and avoid every unpleasant, unholy thought, image or word around us, nor even can we generally avoid having some of these unholy things pop up in our own minds in a seemingly uncontrolled or spontaneous fashion, that God looks at the heart; I’m sure He’s well aware of the plethora of negative and/or unholy things that have the potential of saturating our day and our minds in this world.  With His grace, these things touch but don’t stick; they alight, then move on quickly.  He knows they can enter our minds from outside, but they are not coming from within our hearts, just as we heard in the Gospel this past Sunday (Mark, Ch. 7):

Listen to me, all of you, and understand:  there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile them, but the things that come out of a person are what defile them.

For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come…