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Wednesday 8 July 2015

"They Have No Wine" More from Father Chautard

In my twenties, my late twenties to be exact, I was involved in three areas of lay work in the Church. As Pope Benedict told us not to use the term "ministries" for lay work, I shall be obedient and not use that word.

I had been working in the Church as a lay person very actively for about seven six years, when I experienced "burn out". I went to my superiors and asked for "time out", which led to the dropping of all my areas of work. However, those above me simply did not understand why I was burnt out.

I understood that God had made me for interior work, such as research, scholarship, prayer, but those in the community where I had lived for several years, were all action oriented and very extroverted, strong people.

They did not understand my need for silence and solitude. My interior life grew once I took a break, but I ended up leaving that community, as God showed me where my real work was to be--in the college classroom. Spiritual warfare did not end, but I had the strength to deal with it. This is a key idea--if we are in the vocation to which God has called us, we can withstand the evils we meet, if we turn to God in prayer.

We must not stop doing God's work, but we must, like my friend, like myself, realize that we are limited to the grace God gives us. To pretend to transcend grace is the serious sin of presumption. We are not all the same type of saint.

The key is our own personal relationship with Christ and how Christ wants to use us in the Kingdom. This is not pop psychology on "gifts" but the reality that we are made for work in the Kingdom according to God's plan.

I was and am reminded of the Gospel concerning the first miracle of Christ--the changing of the water into wine. This is what God wants of us--our watery selves, are common souls changed into Him, His Blood going through our souls, minds, imagination, wills, not ours.

But, the wine also symbolizes, besides the need for the Eucharist, the absolute necessity for prayer, meditation, contemplation, the examen.

This wine gives us all the ways to develop the virtues of prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. And, it is our duty to growth in these virtues, through prayer, purification, and mortification.

Ask Mary for grace to pray. Ask Mary for grace to repent and be purified. Ask Mary for help in all things physical and spiritual. She asked Christ to change water into wine, and she will change our weaknesses into strength for the Kingdom and for our own salvation.



Let me go back to The Soul of the Apostolate for a minute.

Let us consider six main features of the way the interior life filters into a soul to establish it in genuine virtue.

 a. It Protects the Soul Against the Dangers of the Exterior Ministry 

“It is more difficult to live well, when one has care of souls, on account of the dangers from without,” says St. Thomas.24 We have spoken of these dangers in the preceding chapter. While the active worker who has no interior spirit is unaware of the dangers arising from his work, and thus resembles an unarmed traveler passing through a forest infested with brigands, the genuine apostle, for his part, dreads them and each day he takes precautions against them by a serious examination of conscience which reveals to him his weak points. If the interior life did nothing more than procure for us the advantage of realizing our incessant danger, it would already be contributing very much to our protection against surprises along our way; for to foresee a danger is half the battle in avoiding it. And yet the inner life has an even greater utility than merely this. It becomes, for the man engaged in the ministry, a complete set of armor. “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil.” 25 It is a divine armor which permits him not only to resist the temptations and avoid the snares set before him by the devil (that you may be able to resist in the evil day), but also to sanctify his every act (and stand in all things perfect). It girds him with purity of intention, which concentrates all his thoughts, desires, and affections upon God and keeps him from going astray and seeking his own comfort, pleasures, and distractions: “having your loins girt about with truth.” It puts on him the breastplate of charity, which gives him a manly heart and defends him against the seductions of creatures and of the spirit of the world, as well as against the assaults of the demon: “having on the breastplate of justice.” He is shod with discretion and reserve in order that in all that he does he may know how to combine the simplicity of the dove and the prudence of the serpent: “And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.” Satan and the world will try to deceive his intellect with the sophisms of false doctrine, and to sap his energies with the enticements of lax principles. But the interior life faces all these lies with the shield of faith, which keeps ever before our eyes the splendor of the divine ideal: “In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one.” The soul will find, in the knowledge of its own nothingness, in care for its own salvation, in the conviction that we can do absolutely nothing without grace, and consequently need at all times insistent, suppliant, and frequent prayer (all the more efficacious in proportion to its confidence) — in all this the soul will find a brazen helmet against which all the blows of pride are dulled: “take unto you the helmet of salvation.” Thus armed from head to foot, the apostle can give himself without fear to good works, and his zeal, enkindled by meditation on the Gospel and fortified by the Bread of the Eucharist, will become a sword that will serve him both in combat against the enemies of his own soul and in conquest of a host of souls for Christ: “the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.” 

b. It Renews the Strength of the Apostle 

Only a saint, as we have said, is able to keep intact the interior spirit and always direct all his thoughts and intentions to God alone, in the midst of a welter of occupations, and in habitual contact with the world. In such a one, every outlay of external activity is so supernaturalized and inflamed with charity that, far from diminishing his strength, it brings with it, necessarily, an increase of grace. In other people, even fervent souls, the supernatural life seems to suffer loss after more or less time spent in exterior occupations. Their less perfect hearts, too preoccupied with the good to be done to their neighbor, too absorbed with a compassion (for the woes to be alleviated) that is not nearly supernatural enough, seem to send up to God flames less pure, darkened with the smoke of numerous imperfections. God does not punish this weakness by a decrease of His grace, and does not demand a strict account of these failings, provided there is a serious attempt at vigilance and prayer in the midst of action, and that the soul is ready, when its work is done, to return to Him and rest and regain its strength. This habit of constantly beginning over again, which is necessitated by the combination of the active with the interior life, gives joy to His paternal Heart.

Remember the miracle of Moses regarding the punishment of God against the Egyptians by turning the Nile into blood? That was a sign of God's power to change ever nature for the sake of His People. Our own natures must be changed through repentance. This great sign which pointed to the power of God and the death of those who do not accept Him, (those who do not believe perish for turning against the Blood of Christ and will be called to explain why they did not listen to the Church's teaching on worthy Communion).

We see in God's punishment a warning to us all not to ignore the wine of prayer, of repentance, of metanoia, like Pharaoh and his people did. Blood was seen as "unclean" in Old Testament times, but Christ's Blood, He the true Anathemata, the reject one, killed outside the city limits of Jerusalem, like a scapegoat, as if He was an impure Sacrifice instead of the most pure, redeems us by His Blood. But, that same Christ will judge us severely for refusing His Sacrament of Life.


Besides, in those who really put up a fight, these imperfections become less and less serious and frequent in proportion as the soul learns to return, tirelessly, to Christ, whom we will always find ready to say to us: “Come back to Me, poor panting heart, athirst with the length of the course. Come and find in these living waters the secret of new energy for other journeys. Withdraw thyself a little from the crowd that is unable to offer thee the nourishment required by thy exhausted strength. Come apart and, rest a little™ In the peace and quiet thou shalt enjoy being with Me, not only wilt thou soon recapture thy first vigor, but also wilt thou learn how to do more work with less expense of strength. Elias, disheartened, discouraged, found his strength renewed in an instant by a certain mysterious bread. Even so, My apostle, in this enviable task of co-redeemer that it has pleased Me to impose upon thee, I offer thee the chance, both by My word, which is all life, and by My grace, that is, by My Blood, to direct thy spirit once again towards the horizons of eternity and to renew the pact of friendship between thy heart and Mine. Come, I will console thee for the sorrows and deceptions of the journey. And thou shalt temper once again the steel of thy resolutions in the furnace of My love.” “Come to Me all you that labor and are heavily burdened and I will refresh you.” “ 

c. It Multiplies His Energies and His Merits “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace which is Christ Jesus.”"” Grace is a participation in the life of the man-God. The creature possesses a certain measure of strength and can, in a certain sense, be qualified and defined as a force. But Christ is power in its very essence. In Him dwells in all its fullness the power of the Father, the omnipotence of divine action, and His Spirit is called the Spirit of Power. “O Jesus,” cries St. Gregory Nazianzen, “in Thee alone dwells all my strength.” 

I shall continue this later....pray for me, pray for the Church. When Christ comes back to judge us all, we shall see the Holy Wounds, as His Passion and Death saved us, but will also judge those who reject Him.

A Sudden Return to The Soul of The Apostolate

An unusual event made me return to the book I shared with you last week, The Soul of The Apostolate.

I would like to tie this section of the book to this event. A weak person I know, a man who admits to me that he is weak in the spiritual life, a beginner, had to perform a duty he did not expect. This person felt stretched and stressed by the people in his work world who are not really Christians. But, he also felt threatened by the really confident and active persons around him who claimed to be Christians. As a reflective person, he realized that his lack of prayer made him vulnerable to a loss of hope, a hardening of the heart, or a turning to craven fear, as he could see he was not up to the task he was asked to do.

Being around very confident and active people, this man fell into one temptation after another, until he felt he could not fulfill his responsibilities.  Then, he realized his complete dependence on God and prayer; that without prayer, he would fall into the worst sins of either presumption or despair, the twin sins of pride. He "woke up" to the fact that even the weakest member of the Church could be proud, and that all his venial sins came from this predominant fault.

How fortunate for him that he saw his weakness and finally called upon Our Lady Mary and Our Lord to help him with his task.

He has yet to complete this task, but he feels assured of help. Prayer first, action second.

How unlike this man is to the hyper-active one in his company. They both work "for the Church", but one in an unceasing pursuit of activity, and the other, my friend, in the awareness that prayer must precede action.

Here is a section from the book which illuminates what this man learned on his job.

A very active and energetic man, invited by us, at the beginning of a retreat, to look into his conscience and seek out the principal cause of his unhappiness, gave a perfect diagnosis in this answer which may seem at first sight incomprehensible: “My self-sacrifice is what has ruined me! My nature and temperament make it a joy for me to spend myself, and a pleasure to serve. What with the apparent success of my enterprises, the devil has contrived, for long years, to make everything work together for my deception, stirring me up to furious activity, filling me with disgust for all interior life, and finally leading me over the edge of the abyss.” This abnormal, not to say monstrous state of mind can be explained in one word. The worker for God, carried away by the pleasure of giving free rein to his natural energy, had let the divine life fade out, and thus lost the supernatural heat which had been stored up in him to make his apostolate effective and which would have helped his soul to resist the encroachments of the numbing ice of natural motives. He had worked, indeed, but far from the rays of the lifegiving sun. Magnae vires et cursus celerrimus, sed praeter viarn.* At the same time, his works, in them-selves very holy, had turned against the apostle like a weapon dangerous to wield, a two-edged sword which wounds the man who does not know how to use it. St. Bernard was warning Pope Bl. Eugenius III against just such a danger as this when he wrote: “I fear, lest in the midst of your occupations without number, you may lose hope of ever getting through with them, and allow your heart to harden. It would be very prudent of you to withdraw from such occupations, even if it be only for a little while, rather than let them get the better of you, and, little by little, lead you where you do not want to go. And where, you will ask, is that? To indifference. “Such is the end to which these accursed tasks (hae occupationes maledictae) will lead you; that is, if you keep on as you have begun, giving yourself entirely to diem, keeping nothing of yourself, for yourself.” “ Is there anything more lofty and more sacred than the government of the Church? Is there anything more useful for the glory of God and for the good of souls? And yet “accursed task,” St. Bernard calls them, if they are going to stand in the way of the interior life of the one who gives himself to them. What an expression, “accursed tasks/” It calls for a whole book, so terrifying is it, and so powerfully does it force one to think! It might arouse protest did it not flow from the pen of one so precise as a Doctor of the Church, a St. Bernard. 

2. The Active Worker Who Has No Interior Life 

To sum up such a one in a word; perhaps he is not yet tepid, but he is bound to become so. However, when a man is tepid, with a tepidity that is not merely in the feelings, or due to weakness, but residing in the will, that man has resigned himself to consent habitually to levity and neglect, or at any rate to cease fighting them. He has come to terms with deliberate venial sin, and by that very fact, he has robbed his soul of its assurance of eternal salvation. Indeed, he is disposing and even leading it on to mortal sin.10 Such also is St. Alphonsus’ teaching on tepidity, so well expounded by his disciple, Fr. Desurmont.11 Now how is it that, without an interior life, the active worker inevitably slides into tepidity? Inevitably, we say; and the only proof we need for this is the statement of a missionary bishop to his priests, a statement all the more terrifying by its truth, since it comes straight from a heart consumed with zeal for good works and filled with a spirit that goes clean contrary to anything that smacks of quietism. “There is one thing,” said Cardinal Lavigerie, “one thing of which you must be fully persuaded, and it is that for an apostle there is no halfway between total sanctity, at least faithfully and courageously desired and sought after, and absolute perversion.”

My friend, who does not mind that I share these thoughts and happenings and who believes his story will help others, also realized that his prayer had merely been sheer day-dreaming, a playing of his impure imagination, not a real meeting with God. What brought him to his senses was an event which brought him to the edge of a nervous breakdown.

He saw how unloving and mediocre his faith had been, but he also saw, that the rule, the measure of faith was not the amount of good works he did, but the intense quality of the work, doing his task for God alone and not men, being a true servant of Christ.

His sharing reminded me of this passage from the book:

Fr. (or Mr.) So-and-So feels within himself a growing desire to consecrate himself to good works. He has no experience whatever. But his liking for the apostolate gives us the right to suppose that he has a certain amount of fire, some impetuosity of character, is fond of action, and also perhaps, inclined to relish a bit of a fight. Let us imagine him to be correct in his conduct, a man of piety and even to devotion; but his piety is more in the feelings than in the will, and his devotion is not the light reflected by a soul resolute in seeking nothing but the good pleasure of God, but a pious routine, the result of praiseworthy habits. Mental prayer, if indeed he practices it at all, is for him a species of day-dreaming, and his spiritual reading is governed by curiosity, without any real influence on his conduct. Perhaps the devil even eggs him on by reason of an illusory artistic sense, which the poor soul mistakes for an “inner life,” to dabble in treatises on the lofty and extraordinary paths of union with God, and these fill him with admiration and enthusiasm. All in all, there is little genuine inner life, if any at all, in this soul which still has, we grant, a certain number of good habits, many natural assets and a certain loyal desire to be faithful to God; but that desire is altogether too vague. There you have our apostle, filled with his desire to throw himself into active works, and on the point of entering upon this ministry which is so completely new to him. It is not long before circumstances that inevitably arise from these works (as will readily be understood by anyone who has led the active life) produce a thousand-and-one occasions to draw him more and more out of himself; there are countless appeals to his naive curiosity, unnumbered occasions of falling into sin from which we may suppose he has hitherto been protected by the peaceful atmosphere of his home, his seminary, his community, or his novitiate — or at least by the guidance of an experienced director. Not only is there an increasing dissipation-, or the ever growing danger of a curiosity that has to find out all about everything; not only more and more displays of impatience or injured feelings, of vanity or jealousy, presumption or dejection, partiality or detraction, but there is also a progressive development of the weaknesses of his soul and of all the more or less subtle forms of sensuality. And all these foes are preparing to force an unrelenting battle upon this soul so ill-prepared for such violent and unceasing attacks. And it therefore falls victim to frequent wounds! Indeed, it is a wonder when there is any resistance at all on the part of a soul whose piety is so superficial — a soul already captivated by the too natural satisfaction it takes in pouring out its energies and exercising all its talents upon a worthy cause! Besides, the devil is wide awake, on the look-out for his anticipated prey. And far from disturbing this sense of satisfaction, he does all in his power to encourage it. Yet a day comes when the soul scents danger. The .guardian angel has had something to say: conscience has registered a protest. Now would be the time to take hold of himself, to examine himself in the calm atmosphere of a retreat, to resolve to draw up a schedule and follow it rigorously, even at the cost of neglecting the occasions of trouble to which he has become so attached. 

And, this is what my friend discovered, the absolute need for a schedule for prayer. But, he also saw the pit he narrowly avoided, one which many priests and laity have fallen into. Let Father Chautard continue....

This is what my friend escaped, just in time:

Alas! It is already late in the day! He has already tasted the pleasure of seeing his efforts crowned with the most encouraging success. “Tomorrow! tomorrow!” he mumbles. “Today, it is out of the question. There simply is no time. I have got to go on with this series of sermons, write this article, organize this committee, or that ‘charity,’ put on this play, go on that trip — or catch up with my mail.” How happy he is to reassure himself with all these pretexts! For the mere thought of being left alone, face to face with his own conscience, has become unbearable to him. The time has come when the devil can have a free hand to encompass the ruin of a soul that has shown itself disposed to be such a willing accomplice. The ground is prepared. Since activity has become a passion in his victim, he now fans it into a raging fever. Since it has become intolerable for him to even think of forgetting his urgent affairs and recollecting himself, the demon increases that loathing into sheer horror, and takes care at the same time to intoxicate the soul with fresh enterprises, skillfully colored with the attractive motives of God’s glory and the greater good of souls. And now our friend, up to so recently a man of virtuous habits, is going from weakness to ever greater weakness, and will soon place his foot upon an incline so slippery that he will be utterly unable to keep himself from falling. Deep in his heart he is miserable, and vaguely realizes that all this agitation is not according to the Heart of God, but the only result is that he hurls himself even more blindly into the whirlpool in order to drown his remorse. His faults are piled up to a fatal degree. Things that used to trouble the upright conscience of this man are now despised as vain scruples. He is fond of proclaiming that a man ought to live with the times, meet the enemy on equal terms, and so he praises the active virtues to the skies, expressing nothing but scorn for what he disdainfully calls “the piety of a bygone day.” Anyway, his enterprises prosper more than ever. Everybody is talking about them. Each day witnesses some new success. “God is blessing our work,” exclaims the deluded man, over whom, tomorrow, perhaps the angels will be weeping for a mortal sin. How did this soul fall into so lamentable a state? Inexperience, presumption, vanity, carelessness, and cowardice are the answer. Haphazardly, without stopping to reflect on his inadequate spiritual resources, he threw himself into the midst of dangers. When his reserves of the interior life ran out, he found himself in the position of an uncautious swimmer who has no longer the strength to fight against the current, and is being swept away to the abyss. 

After my friend finishes his last job at his present assignment, he is considering leaving the world and becoming either a contemplative, or a hermit. Why? He now knows he is too weak to handle the demands of the active life, a life demanding a holiness he does not have.  His newly found humility brings him to rely on God alone.

He shared that he was on the brink of a complete separation from reality, when God saved him by showing him what the good father who wrote this book describes below.

“Short of a miracle,” says St. Alphonsus, “a man who does not practice mental prayer will end up in mortal sin.” And St. Vincent de Paul tells us: “A man without mental prayer is not good for anything; he cannot even renounce the slightest thing. “It is merely the life of an animal.’” Some authors quote St. Theresa as having said: “Without mental prayer a person soon becomes either a brute or a devil. If you do not practice mental prayer, you don’t need any devil to throw you into hell, you throw yourself in there of your own accord. On the contrary, give me the greatest of all sinners; if he practices mental prayer, be it only for fifteen minutes every day, he will be converted. If he perseveres in it, his eternal salvation is assured.” The experience of priests and religious vowed to active works is enough to establish that an apostolic worker who, under pretext of being too busy or too tired, or else out of repugnance, or laziness, or some illusion, is too easily brought to cut down his meditation to ten or fifteen minutes instead of binding himself to half an hour’s serious mental prayer from which he might draw plenty of energy and drive for his day’s work, will inevitably fall into tepidity of the will. In this stage, it is no longer a matter of avoiding imperfections. His soul is crawling with venial sins. The ever growing impossibility of vigilance over his heart makes most of these faults pass unnoticed by his conscience. The soul has disposed itself in such a manner that it cannot and will not see. How will such a one fight against things which he no longer regards as defects? His lingering disease is already far advanced. Such is the consequence ....(of) the giving up of mental prayer and of a daily schedule

My friend shared that he saw the absolute need for scheduling "meetings with God" and keeping to that schedule. When he came back from a trip which took him to a part of the world with which he was not familiar, he recognized that he had to rely completely on God for peace, as he no longer had any self-confidence. Now, he was ready for complete dependence on God. He told me that this trip opened his eyes to the great amount of people in the world who were impervious to the interior life, afraid of both their reason and their emotions. They lacked the vigilance over their heart explained in the book I am quoting. He noted that he now came to the great insight that he had to rely on God for all good works. And how to prove this reliance on the Almighty, was prayer and a schedule.

My friend was one step away from this description of a lost soul:

Genuine prayer is no longer to be found in this soul. He prays in a rush, with interruptions that have not the slightest justification; all is done neglectfully, sleepily, with many delays, putting it off until the last minute, at the risk of being finally overcome by sleep. And, perhaps, now and again, he skips parts of the office and leaves them out. All of this transforms what should be a medicine into a poison. The sacrifice of praise becomes a long litany of sins, and sins which may end up by being more than venial.  

This good man was on the verge of complete insanity. And why? Here is more of the description of what he was about to become.

This disorder in the mind brings with it a corresponding unruliness in the imagination. Of all our powers, this one is the most in need of being repressed at this stage. And yet it never even occurs to him to put on the brakes! Therefore, having free rein, it runs wild. No exaggeration, no madness, is too much for it. And the progressive suppression of all mortification of the eyes soon gives this crazy tenant of his soul opportunities to forage wherever it wills, in lush pastures! The disorder pursues its course. From the mind and the imagination it gets down into the affections. The heart is filled with nothing but will-o’-the-wisps. What is going to become of this dissipated heart, scarcely concerned anymore with the Kingdom of God within itself? It has become insensible to the joys of intimacy with Christ, to the marvelous poetry of the Mysteries, to the severe beauty of the Liturgy, to the appeals and attractions of God in the Blessed Eucharist. It is, in a word, insensible to the influences of the supernatural world. What will become of it? Shall it concentrate upon itself? Suicide! No. It must have affection. No longer finding happiness in God, it will love creatures. It is at the mercy of the first occasion for such love. It flings itself without prudence or control into the breach, without a care perhaps even for the most sacred of vows, nor for the highest interests of the Church, nor even for its own reputation. Let us suppose that such a heart would still be upset by the thought of apostasy—and profoundly so. But still, it feels far less fear at the thought of scandalizing souls. Thanks be to God, it is doubtless the exception for anyone to follow this course to the very limit. But is there anyone incapable of seeing that this getting tired of God, and accepting forbidden pleasures, can drag the heart down to the worst of disasters? Starting from the fact that “the sensual man perceiveth not the things that are of the Spirit of God,” 1!l we must necessarily end up with: “He who was reared in the purple has embraced dung.” 20 Obstinate clinging to illusion, blindness of mind, hardness of heart all follow one another in progressive stages. We can expect anything. To crown his misfortunes, the will is now found to be, though not destroyed, reduced to’ such a state of weakness and flabbiness that it is practically impotent. Do not ask him to fight back with vigor; that would make a simple effort, and all you will get will be the despairing answer, “I can’t.” Now a man who is no longer capable of making any effort, at this stage, is on the way to dreadful calamities.

And, here comes the great insight of this friend of mine--that the reason there is so much homosexuality in the priesthood even at the level of the bishops, is that the imagination of these men spun out of control because of the setting aside of the discipline of prayer and the keeping of a schedule.

How can such a serious sin follow something which seems merely like "time management" problems? The hyper-active priests forgot the one thing necessary--the bridal love for Christ. Here is yet one more selection from the book. The lack of silence and prayer allowed the imagination to go wild and want more and more involvement with humans instead of with God. Pride and homosexuality grew together in the soul and in the body.  He believes that the sin of the action is not a great rebellion, but a great deception of the imagination seeking gods rather than God. In other words, one falls into idolatry.

That admirable Jesuit, Fr. Lallemant, takes us right back to the first cause of these disasters when he says: “There are many apostolic workers who never do anything purely for God. In all things, they seek themselves, and they are always secretly mingling their own interests with the glory of God in the best of their work. And so they spend their life in this intermingling of nature and grace. Finally death comes along, and then alone do they open their eyes, behold their deception, and tremble at the approach of the formidable judgment of God.” 21  

Here it is in a nutshell--self-love instead of self-denial; activity without grace; imagination without purification; the lack of humility.

The event to which I referred was this man's awakening to the fact of his complete and utter dependence on God and the fact that he could do no good without prayer. He is a recovering workaholic and a beginner in true prayer.

His story is why I returned today to The Soul of The Apostolate. He noted that until he comes into the illuminative state, he will remain hidden and ask God for a new apostolate.

Since holiness is nothing but the interior life carried to such a point that the will is in close union with the will of God, ordinarily, and short of a miracle of grace, the soul will not arrive at this point without traveling through all the stages of the purgative and illuminative lives — and that with many and grueling efforts. Let us take note of a law of the spiritual life, that all through the course of the sanctification of a soul, the activity of God and that of the soul are in inverse proportion to one another. From day to day God does more and more of the work, and the soul does less and less. The activity of God in the souls of the perfect is something quite different from His activity in the souls of beginners. In the latter, being less obvious, it consists mostly in inciting and sustaining vigilance and suppliant prayer, thus offering them a means of obtaining grace for new efforts. But, the perfect God acts in a much more complete fashion, and sometimes all He asks is a simple consent, that will unite the soul to His supreme action.

maybe to be continued....one more paragraph from Father Chautard:

Beginners, even the tepid soul and the sinner, whom the Lord wants to draw close to Himself, feel themselves first of all moved to seek God, then to prove to Him more and more their desire of pleasing Him, and finally to rejoice in all providential opportunities that permit them to dislodge self-love from its throne and set up, in its place, the reign of Christ alone. In such cases, the action of God is confined to stimulation and to help. In the saint this action is far more powerful and far more entire. In the midst of weariness and suffering, satiated with humiliations or crushed by illness, the saint has nothing to do but abandon himself to the divine action; otherwise he would be unable to bear the torments which, according to the designs of God, are intended to bring his perfection to full maturity. In him is fully realized the text: “God put all things under Him that God may be all in all.”‘” He depends so completely upon Christ for all things that he seems no longer to live by himself. Such was the testimony of the apostle, with regard to himself: “I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.” 2S It is the spirit of Christ alone that does the thinking and the acting, and makes all the decisions. No doubt this divinization is far from achieving the intensity that it will have in glory, and yet this state already reflects the characteristics of the beatific union


Interesting News

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/11725236/The-really-worrying-financial-crisis-is-happening-in-China-not-Greece.html

Pray for Us, Please

I just lost over 900 USD of books I was going to give to Clear Creek because of flooding in the basement where my stuff is stored.

The owners of the house have lost a lot of personal things as well, and only one day of clear weather is forecasted out of the next seven. We are going to have more rain.

Pray I do not lose anything else and pray for those who have had very severe damage.

Everything is connected.

Framing Prayer 10 Carmelites Continued.....


Titus Brandsma learned to pray in the deep silence of his training as a Carmelite. So, too, Elizabeth of the Trinity, of whom I have many posts, (so follow the tag), learned prayer in suffering and silence in her convent.

One died as a martyr after bringing the strength of his prayer to Dachau. One died extremely young, from a lingering illness, cared for by her sisters in the Lord.

What these two saints have in common is the grounding of a relationship with God in prayer. But, a relationship needs time to develop. Giving Christ time is loving Him already.

We pay attention to those we love.

We have time for those we love.

We try and be perfect in the presence of those we love. But, only Christ can reach down and raise us up.

Here is the young saint. Elizabeth, with words to begin this section on her life of prayer:

O Lord, what does it matter, when I can retire within myself, enlightened by faith, whether I feel or don’t feel, whether I am in light or darkness, enjoy or do not enjoy?  I am struck by a kind of shame at making any distinction between such things and, despising myself utterly for such want of love, I turn at once to You …above the sweetness and consolations which flow from You, because I have resolved to pass by all else in order to be united with You.