Contemplative Haven

“Give freely of thy spirit and judge not; be longsuffering and patient, for when you are kind with the kindness of the spirit to those who are unregenerate, the act frees your own unregeneracy as well.  Blessed is he that sees and understands and forgives.”

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“Do not take on too much the suffering of the world, for the concept is not only too large to understand but is now beyond us. Trusting is part of your role; trusting in high hope, in peace and confidence. Wear these garments of joy without fearful anticipation, look upon the quiet of the hills, of a candle untroubled by the wind; be very, very simple, very uncomplex, very natural in the eternal sense. Keep in the storm center, safe, a power for victory, healing and peace.”

[From: Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood, edited by Mary Strong, 1948]

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During this period leading up to the Feastday of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, I will be making the novena I posted about last year here and here, in which different aspects of Our Lady’s beautiful Icon are meditated upon each day.  To all those who are making a novena at this time, may you be filled with trust and confidence in Mary’s love and solicitude for all her children. 

I also wanted to share with you today a beautiful video I just discovered.  It is of etched-glass windows at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Foremost, Alberta, Canada.  The windows were created by Mary Mehlen, and there is one representing each of the Seven Sacraments, as well as one in honour of Mary and another in tribute to all who minister.  Many thanks to the YouTube channel allsaintsparish for providing this beautiful footage for all to enjoy. 

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“True creative sympathy does not throw one into the darkness of another’s life. Stand in the light that has been revealed to you by your communion with him who said, “My joy I give unto thee,” and by so doing help to illumine the one in need.”

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“During your times of quiet, those lovely moments, pools of restoration where you drink deep of the waters of spiritual health, learn to discipline yourselves. Not with the fist, for that soon tires; not with the mind, for that is forgetful; but with the heart. Love will keep you there. Love is vigilant, it is quieting, it is your gently strong awareness, it is the oil of joy that supplies the Light.”

[From: Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood, edited by Mary Strong, 1948]

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The Prayer (by Jones Very.  American poet, 1813-1880)

Wilt Thou not visit me?
The plant beside me feels thy gentle dew,
And every blade of grass I see
From thy deep earth its quickening moisture drew.

Wilt Thou not visit me?
Thy morning calls on me with cheering tone;
And every hill and tree
Lend but one voice, - the voice of Thee alone.

Come, for I need thy love,
More than the flower the dew or grass the rain;
Come, gently as thy holy dove;
And let me in thy sight rejoice to live again.

I will not hide from them
When thy storms come, though fierce may be their wrath,
But bow with leafy stem,
And strengthened follow on thy chosen path.

Yes, Thou wilt visit me:
Nor plant nor tree thine eye delights so well,
As, when from sin set free,
My spirit loves with thine in peace to dwell.

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Where will today find you?

You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
Say to the Lord, “My refuge and fortress,
my God in whom I trust.”

[Taken from Psalm 91]

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Yes, a survey.  Well of course you can trust me.  Apart from the fact that they will be on the Internet, all responses will be kept confidential (basically because I can’t remember anything anymore).

I don’t wish to appear as if I’m poking my nose, sunglasses and magnifying glass into your business, but as of today, fifty people have downloaded Part One of Father Thomas Dubay’s 13-part podcast on contemplation from my fileshare link that I posted in January 2008. 

For Parts Two to Thirteen, there have been anywhere from eighteen to thirty-two downloads.

So I was wondering if ”said downloaders” would be interested in discussing them one by one here at the Haven.  If so, we could perhaps do one a week over the course of the summer (some may require more than one post - we’d have to see how it goes).

If there are a fair number of “yes” responses in the combox here (you don’t have to leave your real given name unless you want to, but I look forward to a little imagination in the pseudonyms, please; perhaps Matilda, or Hortense, or Guillaume), then I would be happy to go ahead with this endeavor.  If no one responds, I may do it anyway, just because, well…just because.  I have my reasons, and you’ll never get them out of me.  (Basically because I can’t remember anything anymore).  I think I already said that.  

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The mystical life of St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) began early.  She was only six when she saw a vision of heaven in the sky, where Jesus appeared to her along with Peter, Paul and John the Evangelist.  Jesus smiled upon her lovingly while making the sign of the cross over her, and from that moment on Catherine knew that she wanted to devote herself and her life to God. Her continued absorption in God was profound, distressing her family very much, but upon finally realizing that Catherine’s mystical life was the will of God, her family conceded and Catherine was accepted as a Third Order Dominican with the Sisters of Penance. The Sisters of Penance were not cloistered, but lived withdrawn from the world in their own homes. In “Catherine of Siena“, by Igino Giordani, the author writes: “It seems curious that considering her absorption in God and her yearning to flee the world and conquer her flesh she did not seek admission into a cloistered convent. Instead, Catherine, whose only wish was to withdraw from the world, still determined to remain in it. The Lord had called her to a special mission: that of an apostle, whose vocation is to be in the world but not of the world.”

Catherine, continually absorbed in contemplative prayer and well-practiced in asceticism and mortification, reached the heights of love of God and experienced the mystical espousal with the Lord when she was only twenty.  Quickly thereafter, the Lord sent her back out into the world to care for the sick, give her followers spiritual direction, and teach the most learned and powerful.  Igino Giordani beautifully writes:

“Thus appears a second phase of Catherine’s life:  the phase of active life; but not as a change or turning point in her former life - rather as its increase and complement.  She merely joined action to contemplation; or, more exactly, her contemplation was so penetrating that it had to express itself in action.  She was united to God; therefore she had to be united to men.  And if she will no longer live enclosed in a cell with walls, [my note:  Catherine’s bedroom] she will always live in the cell which is knowledge of self.  She will carry her cloister, her cell, with her wherever she goes; her rule will ever be love.”  

[For a beautiful prayer written by St. Catherine of Siena to the Blessed Virgin, please see my post of today at Consecrated to Mary.]

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[Excerpt from: Light and Images. Elements of Contemplation, pgs. 75-76. Adrienne von Speyr]

“This is the law of contemplation, not merely the contemplation of the Cross, but of all contemplation of the Lord:  that the one who prays become empty of himself in order to adapt himself to what the Lord is.  In order with him and in him to say what he says, to attune his voice so closely to the Lord’s that the Father can hear them as one voice…

To desire to exist, not in the I, but in the Thou; without restriction, without a measuring of distance, without a feeling of one’s own unworthiness, and thus in the faith of a child who has been called and, through the call, has been drawn forward.

It is no game; it is no make-believe; rather, it is an integration that God himself has demanded:  we have to contemplate the Lord with the Lord’s own eyes.  With the fullness of him who is the embodiment of the Gospel, we must contemplate every mystery of salvation history, surrender ourselves to it, recognize it as the highest reality, a reality that is so strong that this history has the power to bring all things under the influence of this newly dawning reality.  Whoever looks upon the world’s misery through the Cross, whoever draws closer to the suffering of the children of men through the Lord’s suffering, is ready to arrange his contemplation in the proper way to experience the power of prayer, to receive the mysteries of the Lord’s Incarnation and crucifixion; he is ready, moreover, to receive even the mysteries of the triune God as they have been revealed, and to be changed by them.”

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The following video is a discussion between Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., and Ken Wilbur, of Integral Institute, on aspects of contemplation and contemplative prayer, particularly in terms of the false self and spiritual stages.  Note, at approximately 6 minutes into the video, the little gasps and murmurs from the audience as they recognize the truth of what Father Keating has just said:  “And that’s why, to take a determination not to contribute to the messiness of the world by adding our own false-self projects to it, is one of the greatest gifts you could give to humanity.”

Father Keating also speaks of the Great Commandment, and on the subject of loving the Lord our God with our whole mind, heart, soul and with all of our strength, he says:  “…it is impossible to do without contemplative prayer and the insight that that brings.”

At approximately seven-and-a-half minutes into the video, Ken Wilbur describes the stages of growth and development that men and women tend to go through spiritually, and how these stages (of nearness to the Divine presence) can now be “measured” scientifically, at least “on the psychological side of the street”.  He is very sincere and excited about this, because, as he sees it, this scientific data can now be used in arguments about the effectiveness of contemplative prayer - the measurable results can counter non-believers’ statements that the whole thing is merely “wishful thinking”. 

Yet Father Keating brings the discussion back to the spiritual reality of the hardships and difficulties facing those who follow the contemplative path, and of the necessity of growth in humility.  Notice how he does this gently, with an exquisite sense of humour. 

And remember - if you are growing in your contemplative practice and in humility, and find your life unmanageable as you’re living it, take heart in one of Father Keating’s final remarks, that “this is a triumph, not a disaster.”

Direct to YouTube for this video is here.

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A reader asked if it would still be possible to get Father Thomas Dubay’s 13-episode contemplation podcast that I posted about here in August.  Unable to find the podcast in the EWTN audio archives, and having no success emailing my own audio files to my reader as attachments because of their size, my friend JohnT advised me that I would have to “stage” my files somewhere on the web in order to proceed. (Thanks, JT!)

So if anyone else missed the chance to download the series the first time around, here are my file-share links to each episode.  Just allow a few minutes for the little video box on the left-hand side to open and for all the details to appear further down.  You may just listen, or scroll down and click the download button to save to your own hard drive.  As long as I remember to log in at least once every thirty days, the files should be there indefinitely, so you may download and/or just listen to them at your own pace.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

Episode 8

Episode 9

Episode 10

Episode 11

Episode 12

Episode 13 

Many thanks to Father Dubay and to EWTN for the original podcast. I’m sure you will benefit greatly from the series they provided.

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