The last post was a list of previous desert posts as a warm up, no pun intended, for what Raissa writes on November 24, 1934.
"Terrible ordeal in silent prayer. Felt all the bitterness of death. God asks of me more than my life; to accept living death, existence in a barren desert. That is giving more than one's soul....."
Then, on the next day, she writes this, "In some manner, I am having personal experience of that great mystery St. Paul speaks of, making up what is lacking in the Passion of Christ. Being the Passion of God, it is forever gathered up into the eternal. What is lacking is a development in time....Those who allow themselves to become his to the point of being perfectly assimilated to him, accomplish, throughout the whole length of time, what is lacking in his Passion. Those who consent to become flesh of his flesh. Terrible marriage, in which love is not only strong as death but begins by being a death, and a thousand deaths....(this gift) involves a manner of redeeming the world, and of suffering, which is accessible only to sinners. By renouncing the good things of this world, which in certain cases more numerous than one might think, sin would have procured us--by giving to God our human and temporal happiness, we give him proportionality as much as he gives us, because we him our all, the widow's mite in the Gospel."
Raissa is describing the mystical marriage. She refers to Angela of Foligno, as I did last summer.
Why the desert? So God can take the beloved away from all people and reveal Him in the solitude as the Bridegroom.
There are more than what are listed below. Here are the links.
17 Jun 2014
Earlier this year, I wrote a bit on the Attributes of God. As I am finishing up The Book of Divine Consolation Of The Blessed Angela of Foligno (now saint), I can return to this theme, using some of her great insights given to her ...
11 Jun 2014
Continuing with Angela of Foligno, one sees the progression of her road to holiness. This saint admits that she had lived a loose life. She is sharing insights concerning the siren call of the world as one who escaped, through ...
11 Jun 2014
Those who see the value of poverty, notes Angela of Foligno, freely give up things and status. The nuns and monks who give up owing their own personal things, give up any chance of being seen as worthwhile in the world.
13 Jun 2014
Perfection Series II: St. Angela Part Eight. Posted by Supertradmum. St. Angela of Foligno writes of the third level of the poverty of Christ. This is the poverty in which Christ chose to become impotent in the world, setting aside ...
22 Jun 2014
Having finally finished the book of St. Angela, I can state absolutely that her language and experiences are quite similar, if not exact, to those of Julian of Norwich. Julian's statement that God is closer to us than our own souls is ...
17 Jun 2014
Earlier this year, I wrote a bit on the Attributes of God. As I am finishing up The Book of Divine Consolation Of The Blessed Angela of Foligno (now saint), I can return to this theme, using some of her great insights given to her ...
11 Jun 2014
St. Angela of Foligno. Posted by Supertradmum. Perfection Series II: Angela of Foligno. The Book of Divine Consolation of The Blessed Angela of Foligno provides another help for those seeking perfection. The perfection ...
14 Jun 2014
Interesting that St. Angela Foligno writes something which came to me years ago-that God the Father suffered with Christ on the Cross, and that part of Christ's sufferings were those inflicted by ungrateful children on the Father ...
12 Jun 2014
St. Angela writes that Christ's entire life was one of penance. This seems obvious after one points this out. God on earth must have suffered constantly. I was thinking last night, as I was suffering intensely, of the great Desert ...
19 Jun 2014
That God is Good seemed to be the attribute which encompassed the entire spectrum of St. Angela's experience of God's relationship to the world. Angela's words remind me, as I have noted before, those of Julian of Norwich.
