How pathetic a people we are if we cannot protect our children's innocence from sick sex predators who need to be contained and tethered.
The epidemic of sick sex pervades this nation I love.
When I counsel one who is sexually abused by an adult my heart breaks open and anger stirs within.
Televison rock star Archbishop Fulton Sheen noted in his Life of Christ: "The penalty of those who live too close to the flesh is to never understand the spiritual." Physical, spiritual and emotional human beings we are. But, are we out of control when it comes to sex and its dignity and worth in every one?
Internet pornography are the most visited sites today.
Alcohol and sex mixed together is deadly.
These bottomless pits that are never satiated without God drive the attached and addicted humans no end, and dead ends of meaninglessness. And, even more ghastly horrors of unspeakable crimes against children.
This false self plugged in, according to Trappist Thomas Merton and other mystics, is fueled by sex, fame, power, and greed, among other variations. The true or real self does not need dressing up in vice.
Why the cover ups, covert sexuality activity, and denigration of sex's sacredness ordained by God?
When will we bring together the finest minds to address the pathology of the sex epidemic in the land of the free and home of the brave? When? Why haven't leaders led on this issue?
Is sexuality too new a study for us to raise it to its elevated place and dignity far from the epidemic problem swirling around parents where studies show most abuse happens, teachers, scout mentors, sports figures, athletic organizations, the Catholic Church, and more?
Who will lead without blaming and passing the buck along hierarchical links in all organizations and institutions? When will each of us finally stand up and speak up when one witnesses sexual assaults and predatory, criminal, morally bankrupt behavior?
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Pretty Amazing Grace
Lyrics of Neil Diamond's, Pretty Amazing Grace, emerge from the quiet silent solitude shining within these days. Five days in the plush pastoral woodlands of Kentucky's Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani got me going:
"Pretty amazing grace is what you showed me
Pretty amazing grace is who you are
I was an empty vessel
You filled me up inside
And with amazing grace restored my pride
Prettty amazing grace is how you saved me
And with amazing grace reclaimed my heart
Love in the midst of chaos
Calm in the heat of war
Showed with amazing grace what love was for
Stumbled inside the doorway of your chapel
Humbled and awed by everything I found
Beauty and love surround me
Freed me from what I feared
Asked for amazing grace and you appeared."
Judge Joe Oster and I arrived just before evening prayers, called vespers, after driving from Detroit to the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky.
Monks live here. They produce cheese and fudge and fruitcake for a living while they chant psalms seven times daily. Furthermore, silence is spoken in the enclosure, for the most part.
Of Gods and Men, the movie I watched in horror four times was the last time I spent time with Trappist monks. That thriller grabbed my heart like no other as extremests led a line of monks in Algeria to their deaths in the 90s.
Although that tale was true and painful to watch this visit to the home where Thomas Merton is buried was far from violent.
Indeed, my days were in solitude communing with the Maker much of my moments where "the monks dedicate themselves to the worship of God in a hidden life within the monastery," according to the rule of Saint Benedict that steers this community now for more than 160 years when it was the first abbey founded in the United States in December, 1848.
Jesus and his call are always the beginning of discipleship.
From the earliest days of the Christian era men and women ascetics have heard that call and followed the Savior in gospel simplicity and authenticity.
In fact, toward the end of the third century, Saint Anthony the Great led a movement of such persons from the bustling world to the solitude of the desert. Life devoted to prayer and service in community was also widespread, and as the fifth century dawned, Saint Benedict of Nursia founded such an abbey at Montecassino in southern Italy. His Rule remains the most influential and enduring document of western monasticism. The Abbey of Melleray in western France established Gethsemani where 2,000 acres of plush, pastoral wooodlands pulled me from the harmful frentic life I lead so often.
Silence and calm pervaded the days, and me, for sure. My real and true self is better for it.
Sitting there in the edifice enabled me to hear my heart beat. And, in union with the Creator, the experience took my breathe away, so to speak. I was conscious of slowing down and feeling my way into my heart where God lives 24/7.
At the heart of Merton's spirituality is the distinction he makes between the real and false selves. My false self is the identity I enable to function in society with pride and self-possession. On the other hand, my real and true self is a deep religious mystery, understood entirely and only by God.
The false self is created by what we inhabit, namely, the culture where I reside. The false self and society ignores the real one, and therein lies the paradox of human existence, that is, the more we make of ourselves, the less we actually exist. How true that is for me and my experience of six decades. Sin, missing the mark, emerges in the false and egocentric self within. The fall of Adam and Eve, our representatives at the dawn of time, proved this in their drive and attachment to be the center of creation. They crossed boundaries. Sin entered the world.
Everything else I am or do is ordered about this false self, according to the ancient mystics, one head over heel in love with God. All that I am about, then, uses up life in the desire for pleasures, power, honor, knowledge, and more to clothe and vest this false self and its nothingness into something that is objectively real. I begin to believe it! Like bandages I cover myself with pleasures to make myself perceptible to others, Merton, among others hold. The false self endures then.
The mask or fasle self fabricates into thinking it is the real self even at the loss of one's truth. It is all illusion, however, and, like playing Haloween 365 days a year.
Getting in touch with the true and real self is part of the contemplative life far from the frentic life I live so often.
This project of being God's image and likeness, however, is a process, a lifetime perhaps. Glimpses of my communion and union with God assure me sufficiently for the time being.
Quiet uncluttered time drops away the fasle self and all that I create to prop it up on the stage of life that is all an illusion. Enter the true and real self.
Pretty amazing grace, wouldn't you agree? Perhaps Neil Diamond does.
"Pretty amazing grace is what you showed me
Pretty amazing grace is who you are
I was an empty vessel
You filled me up inside
And with amazing grace restored my pride
Prettty amazing grace is how you saved me
And with amazing grace reclaimed my heart
Love in the midst of chaos
Calm in the heat of war
Showed with amazing grace what love was for
Stumbled inside the doorway of your chapel
Humbled and awed by everything I found
Beauty and love surround me
Freed me from what I feared
Asked for amazing grace and you appeared."
Judge Joe Oster and I arrived just before evening prayers, called vespers, after driving from Detroit to the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky.
Monks live here. They produce cheese and fudge and fruitcake for a living while they chant psalms seven times daily. Furthermore, silence is spoken in the enclosure, for the most part.
Of Gods and Men, the movie I watched in horror four times was the last time I spent time with Trappist monks. That thriller grabbed my heart like no other as extremests led a line of monks in Algeria to their deaths in the 90s.
Although that tale was true and painful to watch this visit to the home where Thomas Merton is buried was far from violent.
Indeed, my days were in solitude communing with the Maker much of my moments where "the monks dedicate themselves to the worship of God in a hidden life within the monastery," according to the rule of Saint Benedict that steers this community now for more than 160 years when it was the first abbey founded in the United States in December, 1848.
Jesus and his call are always the beginning of discipleship.
From the earliest days of the Christian era men and women ascetics have heard that call and followed the Savior in gospel simplicity and authenticity.
In fact, toward the end of the third century, Saint Anthony the Great led a movement of such persons from the bustling world to the solitude of the desert. Life devoted to prayer and service in community was also widespread, and as the fifth century dawned, Saint Benedict of Nursia founded such an abbey at Montecassino in southern Italy. His Rule remains the most influential and enduring document of western monasticism. The Abbey of Melleray in western France established Gethsemani where 2,000 acres of plush, pastoral wooodlands pulled me from the harmful frentic life I lead so often.
Silence and calm pervaded the days, and me, for sure. My real and true self is better for it.
Sitting there in the edifice enabled me to hear my heart beat. And, in union with the Creator, the experience took my breathe away, so to speak. I was conscious of slowing down and feeling my way into my heart where God lives 24/7.
At the heart of Merton's spirituality is the distinction he makes between the real and false selves. My false self is the identity I enable to function in society with pride and self-possession. On the other hand, my real and true self is a deep religious mystery, understood entirely and only by God.
The false self is created by what we inhabit, namely, the culture where I reside. The false self and society ignores the real one, and therein lies the paradox of human existence, that is, the more we make of ourselves, the less we actually exist. How true that is for me and my experience of six decades. Sin, missing the mark, emerges in the false and egocentric self within. The fall of Adam and Eve, our representatives at the dawn of time, proved this in their drive and attachment to be the center of creation. They crossed boundaries. Sin entered the world.
Everything else I am or do is ordered about this false self, according to the ancient mystics, one head over heel in love with God. All that I am about, then, uses up life in the desire for pleasures, power, honor, knowledge, and more to clothe and vest this false self and its nothingness into something that is objectively real. I begin to believe it! Like bandages I cover myself with pleasures to make myself perceptible to others, Merton, among others hold. The false self endures then.
The mask or fasle self fabricates into thinking it is the real self even at the loss of one's truth. It is all illusion, however, and, like playing Haloween 365 days a year.
Getting in touch with the true and real self is part of the contemplative life far from the frentic life I live so often.
This project of being God's image and likeness, however, is a process, a lifetime perhaps. Glimpses of my communion and union with God assure me sufficiently for the time being.
Quiet uncluttered time drops away the fasle self and all that I create to prop it up on the stage of life that is all an illusion. Enter the true and real self.
Pretty amazing grace, wouldn't you agree? Perhaps Neil Diamond does.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Operation Proper Exit
The pain poked deep as I watched Operation Proper Exit on Sixty Minutes Sunday.
Memories of my own brother's demise in Vietnam in '68 emerged alongside those of men and women who came home from Iraq mangled in mind and body with another kind of war that still haunts, only to feel the need to return to the horror they have to carry.
Tear flowed from returning soldiers. Scott Pelley seemed to be red-eyed also. Who wouldn't be?
Aches from explosions and missing body parts let these soldiers know that something was incomplete for them. Something unfinished, at least that still awakens them in the middle of the night. Or, projecting the unhealed pain on a spouse, a son or daughter.
Tears flowed as I watched and remembered the saga of my brother's death. The hole still festers within.
Closure always seems necessary. For them. For me. For my family who still feel the raw unhealed wound of my brother, Lucas' death.
What for? What for this battle?
I hadn't heard that question since the final days of Eleanor Josaitis when I praised her for yet another award that decorated her hospice room only days before her final breath.
"What for?" she bolted back almost in an angry state of dying at her door.
Pain is never easy. War pain. Cancer pain. Watching someone in pain. Recalling pain.
To experience pain penetrating deep within from battle scars is a different kind of pain, however.
War doesn't have to be.
We can imagine other less primitive ways to settle conflicts.
We must.
Or, we'll keep watching another show like Operation Proper Exit where soldier return to Iraq's hot spots to bring some closure to an ache that will haunt until their own final breath, sad to say.
And, more tales of violence will fill television and one's own pained vision within.
Memories of my own brother's demise in Vietnam in '68 emerged alongside those of men and women who came home from Iraq mangled in mind and body with another kind of war that still haunts, only to feel the need to return to the horror they have to carry.
Tear flowed from returning soldiers. Scott Pelley seemed to be red-eyed also. Who wouldn't be?
Aches from explosions and missing body parts let these soldiers know that something was incomplete for them. Something unfinished, at least that still awakens them in the middle of the night. Or, projecting the unhealed pain on a spouse, a son or daughter.
Tears flowed as I watched and remembered the saga of my brother's death. The hole still festers within.
Closure always seems necessary. For them. For me. For my family who still feel the raw unhealed wound of my brother, Lucas' death.
What for? What for this battle?
I hadn't heard that question since the final days of Eleanor Josaitis when I praised her for yet another award that decorated her hospice room only days before her final breath.
"What for?" she bolted back almost in an angry state of dying at her door.
Pain is never easy. War pain. Cancer pain. Watching someone in pain. Recalling pain.
To experience pain penetrating deep within from battle scars is a different kind of pain, however.
War doesn't have to be.
We can imagine other less primitive ways to settle conflicts.
We must.
Or, we'll keep watching another show like Operation Proper Exit where soldier return to Iraq's hot spots to bring some closure to an ache that will haunt until their own final breath, sad to say.
And, more tales of violence will fill television and one's own pained vision within.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Thomas Merton on Nuclear War - A Cold War Letter
Imagine that: the thought that a monk might be deeply enough concerned wit the issue of nuclear war to voice a protest against the arms race, is supposed to bring the monastic life into disrepute. Man, I would think that it might just possibly salvage a last shred of repute for an institution that many consider dead on its feet...
These thoughts from one of Thomas Merton's more than 10,000 letters that he wrote in his liftime from 1915 until his death in 1968, were a way of this monk to tell of his commitment to peace and nonviolence.
On a retreat this past week in Gethsemane, Kentucky, where Merton is buried, I found myself immersed in his writings. His Cold War letters were written to Daniel Berrigan, among others.
Merton wrote:
"...The monk is the one supposedly attuned to the inner spiritual dimension of things. If he hears nothing, and says nothing, then the renewal (of the Church) as a whole will be in danger and may be completely sterilized. But these authoritatrian minds believe that the function of the monk is not to see or hear any new dimension, simply to support the already existing viewpoints precisely insofar as and because they are defined for him by somebody else...The function of the monk...then becomes simply to affirm his total support of officialdom."
On the way home from the retreat, I was told the Church needs a new "rock star" like Merton.
As we pondered who does this kind of truth to power talk, not one person today could be recalled.
Who is the emerging voice of peace and nonviolence?
Please stand up.
These thoughts from one of Thomas Merton's more than 10,000 letters that he wrote in his liftime from 1915 until his death in 1968, were a way of this monk to tell of his commitment to peace and nonviolence.
On a retreat this past week in Gethsemane, Kentucky, where Merton is buried, I found myself immersed in his writings. His Cold War letters were written to Daniel Berrigan, among others.
Merton wrote:
"...The monk is the one supposedly attuned to the inner spiritual dimension of things. If he hears nothing, and says nothing, then the renewal (of the Church) as a whole will be in danger and may be completely sterilized. But these authoritatrian minds believe that the function of the monk is not to see or hear any new dimension, simply to support the already existing viewpoints precisely insofar as and because they are defined for him by somebody else...The function of the monk...then becomes simply to affirm his total support of officialdom."
On the way home from the retreat, I was told the Church needs a new "rock star" like Merton.
As we pondered who does this kind of truth to power talk, not one person today could be recalled.
Who is the emerging voice of peace and nonviolence?
Please stand up.
Monday, October 31, 2011
A Retreat
For the next five days, nestled in Bardstown, Kentucky, a retreat will comprise my time.
The Trappist monks there offer a monastic milieu apart "to entertain silence in the heart ande listen for the voice of God -- to pray for your own discovery," Trappist Thomas Merton notes.
Since 1848, guests have been received at the Abbey of Gethsemani ot far from Louisville, KY.
Hospitality maintains a prominence in the living monastic tradition. As outlined in Saint Benedict's Rule for Monasteries, the guest represents Christ. It has a claim on the welcome and care of the community.
Communing with the Lord requires a measure of solitude, a stillness and an emptiness, a waiting on and attending to the Spirit.
Silence fosters and preserves the climate of prayer and is a fundamental part of the Gethsemani retreat experience.
Retreatants are asked to limit talking to designated areas.
The abbey's many acres of woodlands and fields afford extensive space for reflection and prayer.
Monks are available for consultation upon request, or the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation. A vodeo presentation of the monastic life helps one appreciate the encounter of a retreat.
A library contains classic and contemporary books, periodicals and more for use during the
retreat time.
Reservations for a retreat are made by calling (502) 549 4133.
Offerings are on a freewill basis according to means.
I will be away from this blog for the next five days to afford me the silience necessary for a fruitful retreat. You and our world will be in prayer.
Abbey of Gethsemani
3642 Monks Road
Trappist, KY 40051
Next year, Care of the Soul and Companions invites you to make a reservation from Nov. 5-9, 2012, Monday thorugh Friday, for retreat. We pool rides. Pray about attending.
The Trappist monks there offer a monastic milieu apart "to entertain silence in the heart ande listen for the voice of God -- to pray for your own discovery," Trappist Thomas Merton notes.
Since 1848, guests have been received at the Abbey of Gethsemani ot far from Louisville, KY.
Hospitality maintains a prominence in the living monastic tradition. As outlined in Saint Benedict's Rule for Monasteries, the guest represents Christ. It has a claim on the welcome and care of the community.
Communing with the Lord requires a measure of solitude, a stillness and an emptiness, a waiting on and attending to the Spirit.
Silence fosters and preserves the climate of prayer and is a fundamental part of the Gethsemani retreat experience.
Retreatants are asked to limit talking to designated areas.
The abbey's many acres of woodlands and fields afford extensive space for reflection and prayer.
Monks are available for consultation upon request, or the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation. A vodeo presentation of the monastic life helps one appreciate the encounter of a retreat.
A library contains classic and contemporary books, periodicals and more for use during the
retreat time.
Reservations for a retreat are made by calling (502) 549 4133.
Offerings are on a freewill basis according to means.
I will be away from this blog for the next five days to afford me the silience necessary for a fruitful retreat. You and our world will be in prayer.
Abbey of Gethsemani
3642 Monks Road
Trappist, KY 40051
Next year, Care of the Soul and Companions invites you to make a reservation from Nov. 5-9, 2012, Monday thorugh Friday, for retreat. We pool rides. Pray about attending.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Calmly Gazing Beyond Gawking
On a city block in Clinton Township, Michigan there's an encased piece of land that is frequented daily by those who go there to calm down, to be quiet, to say a prayer, or, to pause from the hectic and frenetic life that engulfs them.
A pastoral place of plush greens marked with a splash of autumn yellow and brown, it is a favorite spot of mine for looking, gazing and being for a moment apart from the driven life I lead.
At each station of the cross there, the Jesus Christians believe to be God, I pause to ponder the divinely human model of living life fully and well today. I stop. I wonder. There at the first station, for example, I recall how Jesus the Christ is condemned to death.
I think: An innocent, loving human being is condemned to die. I wonder. Mystery merges with the misery he must have felt at the hands of leaders who seemed threatened by Jesus' every move and every follower he attracted by his life.
Countless black squirrels reside there alongside the stations that depict defining moments in the life of Jesus up to his resurrection from the dead after his carrying of a cross that he was nailed upon before. What anguish must have enveloped him. Such pain poking and penetrating deeply.
I'm told God did this so the Maker's lone Son, Jesus, would redeem a fallen and fractured world.
More mystery merges with the misery he must have felt as an innocent man who loved so completely as he walked the earth.
Rain spills on the pathway of the next few stations showing the route of Jesus to his death.
Wet from water, I recall the sinking of the Titanic and the instruments that play an Autumn hymn as wonderment and anguish filled the feelings of humans going down fast.
They are scary thoughts. Seasonal perhaps, as All Saints and All Souls, is celebrated these next days of November.
I gaze at his face drawn in pencil. It's a gentle and easy look. Far from gawking, I let the etches speak to me. I try to simply be there. I am one with him. The encounter is serene.
The beauty overtakes me. It is a quiet place. The Creator speaks volumes, however, in the silence. The silence is golden, for sure. And, more.
Tomorrow, as Catholics join for Mass at 11 am or at 7 pm, noise of cars and voices will drown the silence some few moments as they unite in communion. Striking contrasts. Yet, some will gaze while others gawks at who fills the pews this damp, autumn day.
The Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton emerges in my mind, on his own thoughts on silence.
"The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion," Merton notes in his Asain Journal.
Merton continues:
"It is wordless. It is beyond words. It is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear Brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are."
The true self that the mystics speak of comes to mind, beyond the false self.
Indeed, we are one in communion with creation and with the Creator.
And Cher and Joe come to mind from their marriage vows earlier this afternoon in Saints Peter and Paul Jesuit Church on Jefferson in downtown Detroit, MI.
They both are vegans. Both are united and in union with planet Earth's creation and animal life. Their wedding dinner this night consists of a menu of pasta, free of foods with animal fats.
One.
One together now in marriage. And, with God's earth for these past couple years since they decided to become vegans during Lent, the forty-day penitential season where Christians
stand with Jesus and his own communion with God by way of intense fasting, prayer and almsgiving.
Solidarity.
This couple committed to gaze at the earth and be one with it. Far from gawking, they stand looking, noticing, contemplating creation. Two attorneys turning, gazing, giving, inspiring us.
They choose not to harm the earth.
One with it. Awesome. Another gaze at another station. The sun peeks perhaps a final ray before the dark covers these shorter days of autumn.
And, a good gaze.
A pastoral place of plush greens marked with a splash of autumn yellow and brown, it is a favorite spot of mine for looking, gazing and being for a moment apart from the driven life I lead.
At each station of the cross there, the Jesus Christians believe to be God, I pause to ponder the divinely human model of living life fully and well today. I stop. I wonder. There at the first station, for example, I recall how Jesus the Christ is condemned to death.
I think: An innocent, loving human being is condemned to die. I wonder. Mystery merges with the misery he must have felt at the hands of leaders who seemed threatened by Jesus' every move and every follower he attracted by his life.
Countless black squirrels reside there alongside the stations that depict defining moments in the life of Jesus up to his resurrection from the dead after his carrying of a cross that he was nailed upon before. What anguish must have enveloped him. Such pain poking and penetrating deeply.
I'm told God did this so the Maker's lone Son, Jesus, would redeem a fallen and fractured world.
More mystery merges with the misery he must have felt as an innocent man who loved so completely as he walked the earth.
Rain spills on the pathway of the next few stations showing the route of Jesus to his death.
Wet from water, I recall the sinking of the Titanic and the instruments that play an Autumn hymn as wonderment and anguish filled the feelings of humans going down fast.
They are scary thoughts. Seasonal perhaps, as All Saints and All Souls, is celebrated these next days of November.
I gaze at his face drawn in pencil. It's a gentle and easy look. Far from gawking, I let the etches speak to me. I try to simply be there. I am one with him. The encounter is serene.
The beauty overtakes me. It is a quiet place. The Creator speaks volumes, however, in the silence. The silence is golden, for sure. And, more.
Tomorrow, as Catholics join for Mass at 11 am or at 7 pm, noise of cars and voices will drown the silence some few moments as they unite in communion. Striking contrasts. Yet, some will gaze while others gawks at who fills the pews this damp, autumn day.
The Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton emerges in my mind, on his own thoughts on silence.
"The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion," Merton notes in his Asain Journal.
Merton continues:
"It is wordless. It is beyond words. It is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear Brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are."
The true self that the mystics speak of comes to mind, beyond the false self.
Indeed, we are one in communion with creation and with the Creator.
And Cher and Joe come to mind from their marriage vows earlier this afternoon in Saints Peter and Paul Jesuit Church on Jefferson in downtown Detroit, MI.
They both are vegans. Both are united and in union with planet Earth's creation and animal life. Their wedding dinner this night consists of a menu of pasta, free of foods with animal fats.
One.
One together now in marriage. And, with God's earth for these past couple years since they decided to become vegans during Lent, the forty-day penitential season where Christians
stand with Jesus and his own communion with God by way of intense fasting, prayer and almsgiving.
Solidarity.
This couple committed to gaze at the earth and be one with it. Far from gawking, they stand looking, noticing, contemplating creation. Two attorneys turning, gazing, giving, inspiring us.
They choose not to harm the earth.
One with it. Awesome. Another gaze at another station. The sun peeks perhaps a final ray before the dark covers these shorter days of autumn.
And, a good gaze.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Contemplative Tradition Inclusive of All Faiths
An enduring legacy of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) is its clarion call to renew the Gospels and biblical theology and tradition of "the Way" of Jesus as primary sources of Catholic spirituality. We have only begun this trek, often on another less noble path or "my" way.
Trappist monk Thomas Keating defines a mystic as one who is head over heel in love with God.
I love that description. Love at its best. To ponder the love of one's life, and the Love of one's life is awesome to behold.
The Word of God in the sacred scripture that is embodied in Jesus the Christ is the font of Christian contemplation.
God becomes one like us in the flesh if Jesus in our human family. Incarnation is the Latin, "in the flesh." God becomes one of us in Jesus, except Jesus is without sin.
The blessed Trinity of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier+ are together in one nature, both the Ultimate Myster and Reality for us. Their own inner relationship and dynamic of Love and absolute giving and receiving is the divine life that Christ was sent to share with each of us. How profoundly touching the Untouchable, Invisible. Incredible Lover - the Present with a capital P.
The manifold Gifts of the Holy Spirit are believed to come into fullness by way of regular practice of prayer and the growth of faith into contemplation with its progression and devlopment. A process it is, or, if you like, a procession like the nine of us in my family formed along Van Dyke on our way as a family to the late Saint Thomas the Apostle Church, our home church, at Miller and Townsend in Detroit, MI.
Saint Gregory the Great of the end of the sixth century, and the inspiration for the Catholic Care of the Soul Companions, summed up the contemplative tradition as the knowlege of God in Scripture and a precious gift of God.
He called it "resting in God." Mind and heart experience in some small or great measure a "taste" of what they are seeking, namely God. Only a glimpse morphs me no end. Really with a capital R for my oneness with the One as in the beginning, life everlasting, amen! For all Eternity!
This understanding perdured through the Middlge Ages. Fasting, chanting, vigils, solitude and periods of silence, simplicity of lifestyle, the rosary, veneration of icons, and more, always included contemplation as part of the Christ-centered goal.
Noticing is how spirituality is described. Contemplation is "loooking" beyond an earthly level.
An example of a contemplative life is Thomas Keating, or the late Thomas Merton who died in 1968 - the year of slaying of Matin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, my own brother Lucas in Vietnam, among so many historic and defining moments, including the TET Offensive, and, the beginning of the women's movement, some assert.
Merton became the leading contemplative voice from his cell in the Twentieth Century American Church. His body is buried at Gethsemane, Kentucky where Joe Oster, Ernie Bedard, among others will join me on retreat for a week in November.
Merton spoke up on contemplative prayer as well as social and global issues, including civil rights, social justice, nuclear disarmament, violence, ecumenism and East-West religious dialogue to name only a few examples. Merton proclaimed to a people in the atomic age, suffering and other consequences of the effecrts of World War II, and, the need to focus on life's primary purpose. This task is "in being one's true self; to come to one's true identity by returning to the ground of our true self - the true self anchored only in God."
Union with God was Merton's quest. It is our own also. I long for it daily. Merton was a prolific writer who taught me much about contemplative journal-writing, and more. In his, New Seeds of Contemplation,
Father Merton, the Trappist monk who stood in the market square in Louiville, KY, saying:
"These are all my people," -- seems to touch the soul, support and guides it in hearing the call to contemplation. He reaches out as a true soul friend in love, wisdom and understanding. His, The New Man, is grounded in Sacred Scripture explaining the dynamic of the spiritual journey in bliblical language. Merton also became aware of the fruits and gift of contemplation that came alive in non-Christian religions. This leaning gave birth to East-West religious dialogue.
Simply put, for Merton, "contemplative prayer is the preference for the desert, for emptiness, for poverty. One has begun to know the meaning of contemplation when he or she intuitively and spontaneously seeks the dark and the unknown path of aridity in preference to every other way. The contemplative is one who would rather not know than know...He accepts the love of God in faith, in defiance of all apparent evidence. This is the necessary condition and a very paradoxical condition, for the mystical experience of God's Presence and of His love for us.
Only when we are able to 'let go' of everything within us, all desire to see, to know, to taste and experience the presence of God, do we truly become able to experience that Presence..."
- From Merton's Contemplative Prayer
I like to get lost in the Love of God and then seem to know a fraction of a glimpse at times, of divine union at the tail-end of my centering prayer two sessions of twenty minutes daily. Most of the session is distracted by judgments, criticisms, and the like. Only when I gently return to my WOrd from Scripture - Beloved - am I resting in God some. Words cannot describe this
encounter and experience with the Holy.
This relationship I relish. Without it, I die inwardly and outwardly act unlovingly.
Prayer works. Prayer heals and mends. Prayer is the connection and union with the Unconditional God who is like a Mother Hen hovering over and within the fractured heart and soul. All the gunk of the shower drains in centering contemplative prayer for me. It takes much time simply and gently and lovingly BEING in the Presence.
Just a few hours before Merton's death in Bangkok, Thailand, these notes were found:
"Christianity and Buddhism agree that the root of man's problems is that that his consciousness is fouled up and does not apprehend reality as it fully is...Christianity and Buddhism alike, then, seeks to bring about a transformation of Man's consciousness...to transform and liberate the truth in each person, with the idea that it will communicate itself to others...The whole purpose of monastic life is to teach us to live by love."
Trappist monk Thomas Keating defines a mystic as one who is head over heel in love with God.
I love that description. Love at its best. To ponder the love of one's life, and the Love of one's life is awesome to behold.
The Word of God in the sacred scripture that is embodied in Jesus the Christ is the font of Christian contemplation.
God becomes one like us in the flesh if Jesus in our human family. Incarnation is the Latin, "in the flesh." God becomes one of us in Jesus, except Jesus is without sin.
The blessed Trinity of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier+ are together in one nature, both the Ultimate Myster and Reality for us. Their own inner relationship and dynamic of Love and absolute giving and receiving is the divine life that Christ was sent to share with each of us. How profoundly touching the Untouchable, Invisible. Incredible Lover - the Present with a capital P.
The manifold Gifts of the Holy Spirit are believed to come into fullness by way of regular practice of prayer and the growth of faith into contemplation with its progression and devlopment. A process it is, or, if you like, a procession like the nine of us in my family formed along Van Dyke on our way as a family to the late Saint Thomas the Apostle Church, our home church, at Miller and Townsend in Detroit, MI.
Saint Gregory the Great of the end of the sixth century, and the inspiration for the Catholic Care of the Soul Companions, summed up the contemplative tradition as the knowlege of God in Scripture and a precious gift of God.
He called it "resting in God." Mind and heart experience in some small or great measure a "taste" of what they are seeking, namely God. Only a glimpse morphs me no end. Really with a capital R for my oneness with the One as in the beginning, life everlasting, amen! For all Eternity!
This understanding perdured through the Middlge Ages. Fasting, chanting, vigils, solitude and periods of silence, simplicity of lifestyle, the rosary, veneration of icons, and more, always included contemplation as part of the Christ-centered goal.
Noticing is how spirituality is described. Contemplation is "loooking" beyond an earthly level.
An example of a contemplative life is Thomas Keating, or the late Thomas Merton who died in 1968 - the year of slaying of Matin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, my own brother Lucas in Vietnam, among so many historic and defining moments, including the TET Offensive, and, the beginning of the women's movement, some assert.
Merton became the leading contemplative voice from his cell in the Twentieth Century American Church. His body is buried at Gethsemane, Kentucky where Joe Oster, Ernie Bedard, among others will join me on retreat for a week in November.
Merton spoke up on contemplative prayer as well as social and global issues, including civil rights, social justice, nuclear disarmament, violence, ecumenism and East-West religious dialogue to name only a few examples. Merton proclaimed to a people in the atomic age, suffering and other consequences of the effecrts of World War II, and, the need to focus on life's primary purpose. This task is "in being one's true self; to come to one's true identity by returning to the ground of our true self - the true self anchored only in God."
Union with God was Merton's quest. It is our own also. I long for it daily. Merton was a prolific writer who taught me much about contemplative journal-writing, and more. In his, New Seeds of Contemplation,
Father Merton, the Trappist monk who stood in the market square in Louiville, KY, saying:
"These are all my people," -- seems to touch the soul, support and guides it in hearing the call to contemplation. He reaches out as a true soul friend in love, wisdom and understanding. His, The New Man, is grounded in Sacred Scripture explaining the dynamic of the spiritual journey in bliblical language. Merton also became aware of the fruits and gift of contemplation that came alive in non-Christian religions. This leaning gave birth to East-West religious dialogue.
Simply put, for Merton, "contemplative prayer is the preference for the desert, for emptiness, for poverty. One has begun to know the meaning of contemplation when he or she intuitively and spontaneously seeks the dark and the unknown path of aridity in preference to every other way. The contemplative is one who would rather not know than know...He accepts the love of God in faith, in defiance of all apparent evidence. This is the necessary condition and a very paradoxical condition, for the mystical experience of God's Presence and of His love for us.
Only when we are able to 'let go' of everything within us, all desire to see, to know, to taste and experience the presence of God, do we truly become able to experience that Presence..."
- From Merton's Contemplative Prayer
I like to get lost in the Love of God and then seem to know a fraction of a glimpse at times, of divine union at the tail-end of my centering prayer two sessions of twenty minutes daily. Most of the session is distracted by judgments, criticisms, and the like. Only when I gently return to my WOrd from Scripture - Beloved - am I resting in God some. Words cannot describe this
encounter and experience with the Holy.
This relationship I relish. Without it, I die inwardly and outwardly act unlovingly.
Prayer works. Prayer heals and mends. Prayer is the connection and union with the Unconditional God who is like a Mother Hen hovering over and within the fractured heart and soul. All the gunk of the shower drains in centering contemplative prayer for me. It takes much time simply and gently and lovingly BEING in the Presence.
Just a few hours before Merton's death in Bangkok, Thailand, these notes were found:
"Christianity and Buddhism agree that the root of man's problems is that that his consciousness is fouled up and does not apprehend reality as it fully is...Christianity and Buddhism alike, then, seeks to bring about a transformation of Man's consciousness...to transform and liberate the truth in each person, with the idea that it will communicate itself to others...The whole purpose of monastic life is to teach us to live by love."
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