Six Books for the Journey – Course 4 week 5

DEVOTIONAL CLASSICS – Richard Foster and James Bryan Smith – Hodder and Stoughton  published 1993  PART 2

 

THOMAS MERTON  (1915-1968)

 

CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER

 

We need to be realistic about our prayers

“People who try to pray and meditate above their proper level, who are too eager to reach what they believe to be a “high degree of prayer”, get away from the truth and from reality. In observing themselves and trying to convince themselves of their advance, they become imprisoned in themselves. Then when they realize that grace has left them, they are caught in their emptiness and futility and remain helpless. Acedoa (sloth or apathy in spirit) follows the enthusiasm of pride and spiritual vanity. A long course in humility and compunction is the remedy!

We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners.” P 89

 

JULIAN OF NORWICH    (1343-1413)

Revelations of Divine Love

 

“Just as our flesh is covered by clothing, and our blood is covered by our flesh, so are we, soul and body, covered and enclosed by the goodness of God. Yet, the clothing and the flesh will pass away, but the goodness of God will always remain and will remain closer to us than our own flesh.

God only desires that our soul cling to him with all of its strength, in particular, that it clings to his goodness. For of all the things our minds can think about God, it is thinking upon his goodness that pleases him most and brings the most profit to our soul. For we are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it. No created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God loves them. It is only with the help of his grace that we are able to persevere in spiritual contemplation with endless wonder at his high, surpassing, immeasurable love which our Lord in his goodness has for us. Therefore we may ask from our Lover to have all of him that we desire. For it is our nature to long for him, and it is his nature to long for us. In this life we can never stop loving him.

I learned a great lesson of love in this blessed vision. For of all things, contemplating and loving the Creator made my soul seem less in its own sight and filed it full with reverent fear and true meekness and with much love for my fellow Christians” p 101

 

HENRI NOUWEN

 

From  “MAKING ALL THINGS NEW”

 

“The spiritual life is a gift. It is the gift of the Holy Sirit, who lifts us up into the kingdom of God’s love. But to say that being lifted up in the kingdom of love is a divine gift does not mean that we wait passively until the gift is offered to us.

Jesus tells us to set our hearts on the kingdom. Setting our hearts on something involves not only serious aspiration but also strong determination.  A spiritual life requires human effort. The forces that keep pulling us back into a worry-filled life are from easy to overcome.

“How hard it is” Jesus exclaims “…to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10.22). And to convince us of the need for hard work he says “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 16.24)

Here we touch the question of discipline in the spiritual life. A spiritual life without discipline is impossible. Discipline is the other side of discipleship. The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small, gentle voice of God. The prophet Elijah did not encounter God in the mighty wind or in the earthquake or in the fire, but in the small voice (see 1 Kings 19.9-13). Through the practice of a spiritual discipline we become attentive to that small voice and willing to respond when we hear it” p 135

“A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear. When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means “listening”. A spiritual discipline is necessary in order to move slowly from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow his guidance.

A spiritual discipline therefore is the concentrated effort to create some inner and outer space in our lives, where this obedience can be practiced. Through a spiritual discipline we prevent the world from filling our lives to such an extent that there is no place left to listen. A spiritual discipline sets us free to pray or, to say it better, allows the Spirit of God to pray in us.” P 136

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF SOLITUDE

“Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. Solitude begins with a time and a place for God, and him alone. If we really believe not only that God exists but also that he is actively present in our lives – healing, teaching and guiding – we need to set aside a time and a space to give him our undivided attention.  Jesus says “Go to your private room, and, when you have shut your door, pray to the Father who is in that secret place” (Matthew 6.6)

 

“The discipline of solitude allows us gradually to come in touch with his hopeful presence of God in our lives, and allows us also to taste even now the beginnings of the joy and peace which belong to the new heaven and the new earth” p 139

 

FRANK LAUBACH (1884-1970)

Letters by a modern mystic – living in the presence of God

 

“We used to sing a song in the church in Benton which I liked, but which I never really practiced until now. It runs

“Moment by moment, I’m kept in his love;

Moment by moment, I’ve life from aove

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine

Moment by moment, O Lord I am thine”

It is exactly that “moment by moment” every waking moment, surrender, responsiveness, obedience, sensitiveness, pliability, “lost in His love”, that I now have the mind-bent First to be like Jesus. Second, to respond to God as a  violon responds to the bow of the master. Open your soul and entertain the glory of God and after a while that glory will be reflected in the world about you and in the very clouds above your head.

I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in the little things is what astonishes  me. I seem to make sure of only one thing now, and every other thing “takes care of itself” or I prefer to say what is more true, God takes care of all the rest. My part is to live in this hour in continuous inner conversation with God and in perfect responsiveness to his will. To make this hour gloriously rich. This seems to be all I need to think about.”

HAVING A MIND THAT IS SET ON GOD

“It is a will act. I compel my mind to open straight out toward God. I wait and listen with determined sensitiveness. I fix my attention there, and sometimes it requires a long time early in the morning to attain that mental state. I determine not to get out of bed until that mindset, that concentration upon God, is settled. It also requires determination to keep it there. After a while, perhaps, it will become a habit, and a sense of effort will grow less. But why do I harp on this inner experience? Because I feel convinced that for me and for you who read there lie ahead undiscovered continents of spiritual living compared with which we are infants in arms.

But how “practical” is this for the average man? It seems now to me that yonder plowman could be like Calixto Sanidad, when he was a lonesome and mistreated plowboy, “with my eyes on the furrow, and my hands on the lines, but my thoughts on God”. The millions at looms and lathes could make the hours glorious. Some hour spent by some night watchman might be the most glorious ever lived on earth” p 176

 

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546)

 

“It follows that one who prays correctly never doubts that the prayer will be answered, even if the very thing for which one prays is not given. For we are to lay our need before God in prayer but not prescribe to God a measure, manner, time or place. …

When we pray we should keep in mind all of the shortcomings and excesses we feel, and pour them out freely to God, our faithful Father, who is ready to help. If you do not know or recognize your needs, or think you have none, then you are in the worst possible place. The greatest trouble we can ever know is thinking that we have no trouble for we have become hardhearted and insensible to what is inside of us.”

 

JEAN-NICHOLAS GROU  (1730-1803)

“We know in general that prayer is a religious act, but when it comes to praying we easily forget that it is a supernatural act which is therefore beyond our own strength and can only be performed by the inspiration and help of grace. As St Paul says “Not that we are competent to claim anything from ourselves, but our competence comes from God.” (2 Cor 3.5). As St Augustine says, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Knowing this is the essence of prayer. The posture of our body and the words we use have no significance in themselves and are only pleasing to God as they express the feelings of the heart. For it is the heart that prays, it is to the voice of the heart that God listens, and it is the heart that he answers. When we speak of the heart, we mean the most spiritual part of us. In the Scriptures, prayer is always ascribed to the heart, for it is the heart that God teaches and it is through the heart that he enlightens the mind.” P 205

 

 

 

 

GREGORY OF NYSSA (331-396)

From “The Life of Moses”

“This is pure perfection: not to avoid a wicked life because like slaves we servile fear punishment, nor to do good because we hope for rewards, as if cashing in on the virtuous life by some business-like arrangement. On the contrary, disregarding all those things for which we hope and which have been reserved by promise, we regard falling from God’s friendship as the only thing dreadful and we consider becoming God’s friend the only thing worth of honour and desire. This, as I have said, is the perfection of life.” P 229

 

 

RICHARD ROLLE (1290 – 1349)

 

“I cannot tell you how surprised I was the first time I felt my heart begin to warm. It was real warmth, too, not imaginary, and it felt as if it were actually on fire. I was astonished at the way the heat surged up and how this new sensation brought great and unexpected comfort. I had to keep feeling my breast to make sure there was no physical reason for it.

But once I realised that it came entirely from within, that this fire of love had no cause, material or sinful, but was the gift of my Maker, I was absolutely delighted, and wanted my love to be even greater. And this longing was all the more urgent because of the delightful effect and the interior sweetness which this spiritual flame fed into my soul. Before the infusion of this comfort, I had never thought that we exiles could possibly have known such warmth, so sweet was the devotion it kindled. It set my soul aglow as if a real fire was burning there.” P. 234

 

“But some things are opposed to charity: carnal, sordid things which beguile a mind at peace. And sometimes in this bitter exile physical need and strong human affection obtrude into this warmth, to disturb and quench this flame (which metaphorically I call “fire” because it burns and enlightens). They cannot take away what is irremovable, of course, because this is something which has taken hold of my heart.

Yet because of these things this cheering warmth is for a while absent. It will reappear in time though until it does, I am going to be spiritually frozen, and because I am missing what I have become accustomed to, will feel myself barren. It is then that I want to recapture that awareness of inner fire which my whole being, physical as well as spiritual, so much approves; with it, it knows itself to be secure.” P 234

 

 

 

A heart focussed on God

“Everyone of us who live in this life of ours knows that we cannot be filled with a love of eternity or anointed with the sweet oil of heaven unless we are truly converted to God. Before we can experience even a little of God’s love, we must be really turned to him, and in mind at least, be turned from every earthly thing. The turning indeed is a matter of duly ordered love, so that, first, we love what we ought to love and not what we ought not, and, second, our love kindles more towards the former than to the latter.

God is to be loved, of course, most of all : heavenly things too are much to be loved; but little love, or at least no more than is necessary, may be given to earthly things. This surely is the way we turn to Christ, to desire nothing but him. To turn away from those “good things” of the world, which pervert rather than protect those who love them, involves the withering of physical lust and the hatred of any wickedness of any sort. So you will find there are people who have no taste for earthly things and who deal with mundane matters no more than is absolutely necessary.”  P. 236

 

THOMAS A KEMPIS (1380-1471)

“Patience is necessary in this life because so much of life is fraught with adversity. No matter how hard we try, our lives will never be without strife and grief. Thus, we should not strive for a peace that is without temptation, of for a life that never feels adversity.  Peace is not found by escaping temptations, but by being tried by them. We will have discovered peace when we have been tried and come through the trial of temptation.

“But”, you may say, “what about those who find such pleasure and delight when they give in to temptations?” To be sure there is pleasure for them, but how long does it last? It is like smoke – it vanishes quickly. Soon even the memory of the joy is gone. They will never find rest, and they will live in bitterness and weariness and fear.

The very thing they think will bring them joy will bring them sorrow: that which they think will bring them pleasure will bring them only pain. Because of their blindness and numbness they may never see or feel how miserable they are. They may not even know that their soul is slowly dying.

But, if you want to have true delight, here is the way: have contempt for worldly things, and all lower delights, and rich consolation will, in turn, be given to you. In proportion as you withdraw yourself from the love of these things, so you will find consolations from God much more sweet and potent.

At first this will be difficult. Long-standing habits will resist, but they will be vanquished in time by a better habit – if you persevere! The flesh will cry out, but it will be restrained by the Spirit. The devil will try to stir you up and provoke you, but he will run away the moment you begin to pray. And above all, try to engage in useful work. In doing so, the devil is prevented from having access to you.

 

Sometimes it is good for us to have troubles and hardships, for they often call us back to our own hearts. Once there, we know ourselves to be strangers in this world, and we know that we may not believe in anything that it has to offer. Sometimes it is good that we put up with people speaking against us, and sometimes it is  good that we be thoughts of as bad and flawed even when we do good things and have good intentions. Such troubles are often aids to humility, and they protect us from pride. Indeed, we are sometimes better at seeking God when people have nothing but bad things to say about us and when they refuse to give us credit for the good things we have done! That being the case, we should so root ourselves in God that we do not need to look for comfort anywhere else.

Finally, I want to teach you the way of peace and true liberty. There are four things you must do. First, strive to do another’s will rather than your own. Second, choose always to have less than more. Third, seek the lower places in life, dying the need to be recognised and important. Fourth, always and in everything desire that the will of God may be completely fulfilled in you. The person who tries this will be treading the frontiers of peace and rest.”  P . 275

 

WILLIAM LAW (1686-1761)

“Now if we conclude that we must be pious in our prayers, we must also conclude that we must be pious in all the other aspects of our lives. For there is no reason why we should make God the rule and measure of our prayers, why we should look wholly unto him and pray according to his will, and yet not make him the rule and measure of all the other actions of our life. For any ways of life, any employment of our talents whether of our bodies, our time, or money that are not strictly according to the will of God, that are not done to his glory are simply absurdities, and our prayers fail because they are not according to the will of God. For there is no other reason why our prayers should be according to the will of God unless our lives may also be of the same nature. Our lives should be as holy and heavenly as our prayers. It is our strict duty to live by reason, to devote all of the action of our lives to God, to walk before him in wisdom and holiness and all heavenly conversation, and to do everything in his name and for his glory. If our prayers do not lead us to this, they are of no value no matter how wise or heavenly. No such prayers  would be absurdities. They would be like prayers for wings though we never intended to fly.

If we are going to pray for the Spirit of God we must make that Spirit the rule of all our actions. Just as it is our duty to look wholly unto God in our prayers, so it is our duty to live wholly unto God in our lives. But we cannot live wholly unto God unless we live unto him in all the ordinary actions of our life, unless he is the rule and measure of all our ways, just as we cannot pray wholly unto God unless our prayers look wholly unto him.

This is the reason that we see such ridicule in the lives of many people. Many people are strict when it comes to times and places of devotion, but when the service and the church is over, they live like those that seldom or never come there. In their way of life, their manner of spending their time and their money,  in their cares and fears, in their pleasure and indulgences, in their labours and diversions, they are like the rest of the world. This leads the world to make light of those who are devout because they see their devotion goes no further than their prayers. When their prayers are over, they stop living unto God until the next time they pray. In between they live with the same attitudes and desires as other people. This is the reason why they are scoffed at by worldly people, not because they are really devoted to God, but because they appear to have no other devotion than their occasional prayers.

It is very observable that there is not one command in all the gospel for public worship. One could say that it is the duty least insisted upon in Scripture. Frequent church attendance is never so much as mentioned in all the New Testament. But the command to have a faith which governs the ordinary actions of our lives is found in almost every verse of Scripture. Our blessed Saviour and his Apostles were very intent on giving us teachings that relate to daily life. They teach us: to renounce the world and be different in our attitudes and ways of life; to renounce all its goods, to fear none of its evils, to rejects its joys and have no value for its happiness; to live as pilgrims in spiritual watching, in  holy fear, and heavenly aspiring after another life; to take up our cross daily, to deny ourselves, to profess the blessedness of mourning, to seek the blessedness of poverty of sprit; to forsake the pride and vanity of riches, to take no thought for the morrow, to live in the profoundest state of humility, to rejoice in worldly sufferings; to reject the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life; to bear injuries, to forgive and bless our enemies and to love all people as God loves them; to give up our whole hearts and affections to God, and to strive to enter through the straight gate into a life of eternal glory.”  P .283

“If self-denial is a condition for salvation, all who desire to be saved must make self-denial a part of everyday life. If humility is a Christian duty, then the everyday life of a Christian must show forth humility. If we are called to care for the sick, the naked, and the imprisoned, these expressions of love must be a constant effort in our lives. If we are to love our enemies, our daily life must demonstrate that love. If we are called to be thankful, to be wise, to be holy, they must show forth in our lives. If we are to be new people in Christ, then we must show our newness to the world. If we are to follow Christ, it must be in the way we spend each day”. P 284

 

 

TERESA OF AVILA  (1515-1582)

FROM THE INTERIOR CASTLE

 

“God looks into our souls and perceives our desires. If our desires are good, we cannot fail. Nevertheless, the assaults of the devils that are made upon the soul are terrible. Again, this is why the soul suffers more at this stage than does the beginner. Whereas before the soul was somewhat deaf and blind and had no will to resist, now it has begun to hear and see and resist as one who is about to gain victory.

It is at this stage that the devils will attack the soul with the earthly pleasures of this world, like snakes who bite with deadly poison. They trick the soul into thinking that such pleasures will last an eternity; they remind the soul of the high esteem in which it is held in the world; they take place before it the many friends and relatives who will disagree with the manner of life you have now begun.

All this is the work of the venomous snakes of sin that bite us early in our journey. Life one who is bitten by a snake, our whole body swells up with the poison. Only the great mercy of God will preserve us. The soul will certainly suffer great trials at this time, especially if the devil sees that its character and habits are such that it is ready to make further progress; all the powers of hell will combine to drive it back again.

That is why it is very important for us to associate with others who are walking in the right way – not only those who are where we are in the journey, but also those who have gone further. Those who have drawn close to God have the ability to bring us closer to him, for in a sense they take us with them. Let us firmly resolve not to lose the battle we fight. For if the devil sees that we are willing to lose our life and our peace, and that nothing can entice us back to the first room, he will soon cease from troubling us But we must be resolute, for we fight with devils, and thus there is no better weapon than the Cross.” P .291

 

“If we go astray at the beginning and want the Lord to do our will and lead us as our desires dictate, how can we be building on a firm foundation? I must remind you that it is the Lord’s will that we should be tested and that even allows evil vipers to bite us. When we are afflicted with evil thoughts that we cannot cast out, or when we enter a spiritual desert that we cannot find our way  out of, God is teaching us how to be on our guard in the future and to see if we are really grieved at having offended him.

If then you sometimes fall, do not lose heart. Even more, do not cease striving to make progress from it, for even out of your fall God will bring some good….Sometimes God allows us to fall in order to reveal to us our own sinfulness and to show us what harm comes as a result of sin. Our sins can have the effect of leading us back to God and striving all the more.”