posted April 15, 2013 02:09 AM              

God knows your prayer, just as He knows your soul. Before you felt a thing, God formed the prayer in your heart, even as he formed your soul in the womb. Really, the prayer is from God to you, before it is from you to Him. And if you go to the trouble of articulating it, that also is for your own benefit, your own understanding. Utterance is the end, not the beginning of prayer; it is the fulfillment, the visitation, and not the evocation. God is evoked in weakness and barrenness of spirit. This torment draws Him to us, but the prayer - the prayer is already the sign of His advent.

What is a dear friend, if not someone with whom we've become closely familiar, and with whom we recognize a natural affinity strong enough to inspire its own cultivation; a kinship which, once realized, makes use of all opportunities and encouragements to bring itself into fullest expression? It is therefor most natural that some people, having recognized a special kinship with Christ, -- or with Virtue, under the mantle of Christ, -- have pursued a most exalted friendship with him; acquainting and familiarizing themselves with his character, words, and deeds; both during his time on earth and throughout history, in his work upon the hearts and minds of those who, like Saint Paul, no longer live, while Christ lives in them. In focusing so much time and attention on Christ and his saints, it is inconceivable that one would not become familiar, friendly, even intimate with them, and that their company would not have an enlightening influence on oneself.

posted April 15, 2013 06:37 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Heart--Shaped Cross:
HUGS.

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More HUGS! Hi M lody!

I actually found the email you sent in my junk folder. Thank you. Long time no talk. Was great to hear from you. Will write you ..sometime. Have not been keeping in touch with anyone for a long time. I think of you fondly and hope you are well.

posted April 17, 2013 10:53 AM              

It's always best to forgive oneself
before apologizing to another.

If you must speak, become bibles;
modern testaments; new scriptures!

Men curse the clarion call, and consecrate the lullaby.

A flatterer is a pusher of a most addictive and destructive drug;
nothing is so much to be lamented as to be content with one's estate.

However exalted, however great,
it is mediocrity to rest --
while life inflames thy breast!

The Lord, in His wisdom,
has coupled loftiness with humility,
and celebrity with servitude.

Actions may serve a particular good,
and words commend a general goodness,
but silence answers the will of God.

A man may stumble and still progress; no pilgrim ascends like a ghost, gliding over rocks and streams; but lurches, lunges, leaps, and leans upon his staff; seeming the most compromised when scaling the steepest height.

When anger overtakes you, do not snatch at consolations, anxious for a cheaply gotten peace. First, be humbled by contrition. Confess your double-will. Lament that you hold to anger still, and cannot put it out of you, however much your higher nature tells you to, and however much you would like to want to do. It must repulse you. Only then will you relinquish it, and peace will come upon you as though unbidden.

To become aware of sin in oneself is almost to uproot it.

The soul is buried, as it were, in a tomb of clay,
and must be dug out, for the purposes of resurrection.

posted May 15, 2013 05:41 AM              

There is no single "enlightenment",
crushingly prosaic or adorned with all novelty,
but there are saints endowed respectively
with various charisms; each privy to different sights.

There are realms of unspeakable bliss,
populated with angels and living lights.
They are not abstract, or metaphorical,
but ordinary, in their own way.

Unity does not exclude division;
in every experience of exaltation
there is something else abased.

Affliction is natural to lovers in this world,
as steam to red coals dropped in water.

Every soul in this world is heroic
and worthy of our utmost compassion.

Humility is not an attitude towards oneself.

posted May 15, 2013 01:42 PM              

If the way to God were from body to spirit,
then body were mere hindrance, and godliness selfish;
but the journey from darkness to light is only half of the way,
for light is gathered so that it might be carried into darkness.

As the lower is transcended in approaching what is higher,
so, also, the higher is transcended in approaching what is lower.

One does not enter into the presence of the King
without receiving a missal for the instruction of all subjects.

posted May 16, 2013 09:42 AM              

A sovereign affection overrules
all qualms of character and conscience.

Man is in a terrible hurry to slow down.

Every castle is made of sand.

posted May 18, 2013 10:48 AM              

Heaven is not a destination, but a destiny;
not a place we go to, but a way of going.

When I speak of Christ, perfect love is understood,
and when I speak of perfect love, Christ is understood.

Only the vulnerable stand with open arms.
Only the broken-hearted spill compassion.

Neither the optimist nor the pessimist lives in the present moment, but each projects his own will, in the form of an expectation, for better or worse, upon a future moment. All expectations are upsetting; even the pessimist does not wish to be proven wrong. True happiness only comes from perfect acceptance and submission to whatever befalls.

Every creation culminates in death. Every work is posthumously signed.

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Most people judge an author by their ability to understand him; and call it his ability to be understood. They make light of what they cannot lift. There are lines all but impossible to lift, which contain whole libraries of verse, and remain immortally fixed upon the page; while so much that is easily held up by the mind is just as easily tossed aside. A man must plant his feet before he reads Pascal.

Matters have numerous dimensions, and must be circumferenced, but we reason in one direction at a time. The true turns and joints of thoughts are in-between them; the better part of an idea is always unspoken. Nonetheless, we desire to examine the bare bones; as if the bones of intellect could be separated from the ligaments of intuition without severing the idea.

Love is greater than all things. Therefore, in order for anything to be loved, it is necessary for love to descend. Yet, love does not cease to be every part of itself, does not lose itself in the least, but discovers itself, through sacrifice. Love is, in fact, a descending principle, anchored and loosed from the Highest.