Spiritual Marriage

Discussion in 'On prayer itself' started by padraig, Oct 19, 2009.

  1. padraig

    padraig Powers

    I used to always love reading books on prayer, because it interested me so much with my own road in prayer. I had the great advantage, being in a monastery of having many , many books on prayer going back centuries to go into. I have had what should have been the great advantage of knowing many, many people who have walked the road of prayer some of them very far indeed. But in the case of Catholics I must say this is not so much an advantage since folks tend to regard their own prayer path as very private and its like trying to get blood from a stone to get the full story from them. In fact I only ever got one guy ,an Archbishop to tell me he has reached the final stage in prayer, Spiritual Marriage, let alone anyone talking about Contemplation.

    I suppose this is because of humility or perceived humility, unlike in the East were I think folks are lot more open about such stuff. I also think its a bit like climbing a mountain. Its only when you have walked up the mountain a bit, through the mists you can get a bit of perspective of what you have been going through and talk about the experience with any sense. Or again, its a bit like talking to someone who has just fallen in love about whats going down. They may likely talk soppy nonsense, if they talk at all. Return to them when they have been married a lot of years and you're likely to get a lot more common sense and perspective. So, too with prayer for prayer is the most powerful experience is the most powerful the soul can undergo is this work of the Holy Spirit that;

    2 Corinthians 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

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    Another thing that annoyed me in my spiritual reading and research was that folks very often talked in terms that seemed to me obscure images of experiences in prayer and what they were feeling and going through. Partly this was because for very old mystical writers, they came from a very different world from ours and had a different way of looking at in describing our world and their inner experience.

    However I loved in when some writers. such as Saint Teresa of Avila talked of stages in prayer. Teresa talks of seven stages the last being Spiritual Marriage. Here was something solid , something closer to modern though, something I could place my own spiritual experiences against and to this present day her 'Interior Castle' is my favourite book on prayer and how to understand it.

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    However I was vexed again {there is nothing so annoying as to try to understand things very dear to ourselves and not to be able to, things that we love} to see that when writers reached the seventh mansion, Spiritual Marriage and wrote very little about it! So that the end point of prayer, the point towards which we go in prayer, the most important is were there was a cul de sac and the road seemed to stop.

    But of course the reason why they stop is that folks who reach this point understand it and need no more instruction. It is the place were, as Saint Paul the the day star rises on the mind. The writers perhaps sense that talking at this point is trying to describe the indescribable and they might be trying to teach their granny's to suck eggs :wink: so they kind of go into a discreet silence.

    However I always promised myself that if God ever called me into this Mansion of Spiritual Marriage I would write a little about it for folks like myself who are curious about it in as simple and direct words as I could. So I will try , at Our Lady's urgings to fulfill this promise now, 24 years after my own Spiritual Marriage when I was 29.

    First of all let us turn to folks of prayer who have themselves experienced and entered into this marriage and then comment a bit on my own experience at length and as simply as possible and why such things are important in all spiritual journeys, for we all of us head towards Spiritual Marriage, Union with God either in this life, of the next. For without this Marriage, I believe, {either in this life or at the close of Purgatory} there is no heaven. For Heaven is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

    7 Let us rejoice and be glad

    and give him glory!

    For the wedding of the Lamb has come,

    and his bride has made herself ready.

    8 Fine linen, bright and clean,

    was given her to wear.”

    (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)

    9 Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”


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    Lats first of all look at what Saint Teresa herself says;

    5. This is not so in the spiritual marriage with our Lord, where the soul always remains in its centre with its God. Union may be symbolized by two wax candles, the tips of which touch each other so closely that there is but one light; or again, the wick, the wax, and the light become one, but the one candle can again be separated from the other and the two candles remain distinct; or the wick may be withdrawn from the wax. But spiritual marriage is like rain falling from heaven into a river or stream, becoming one and the same liquid, so that the river and rain water cannot be divided; or it resembles a streamlet flowing into the ocean, which cannot afterwards be disunited from it. This marriage may also be likened to a room into which a bright light enters through two windows--though divided when it enters, the light becomes one and the same.

    6. Perhaps when St. Paul said, 'He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit,' 6 he meant this sovereign marriage, which presupposes His Majesty's having been joined to the soul by union. The same Apostle says: 'To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.' 7 This, I think, might here be uttered by the soul, for now the little butterfly of which I spoke dies with supreme joy, for Christ is her life.

    7. This becomes more manifest by its effects as time goes on, for the soul learns that it is God Who gives it 'life,' by certain secret intuitions too strong to be misunderstood, and keenly felt, although impossible to describe. These produce such over-

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    mastering feelings that the person experiencing them cannot refrain from amorous exclamations, such as: 'O Life of my life, and Power which doth uphold me!' with other aspirations of the same kind. 8 For from the bosom of the Divinity, where God seems ever to hold this soul fast clasped, issue streams of milk, which solace the servants of the castle. I think He wishes them to share, in some way, the riches the soul enjoys; therefore from the flowing river in which the little streamlet is swallowed up, some drops of water flow every now and then to sustain the bodily powers, the servants of the bride and Bridegroom.

    8. A person who was unexpectedly plunged into water could not fail to be aware of it; here the case is the same, but even more evident. A quantity of water could not fall on us unless it came from some source--so the soul feels certain there must be some one within it who lances forth these darts and vivifies its own life, and that there is a Sun whence this brilliant light streams forth from the interior of the spirit to its faculties.

    9. The soul itself, as I said, never moves from this centre, nor loses the peace He can give Who gave it to the Apostles when they were assembled together. 9 I think this salutation of our Lord contains far deeper meaning than the words convey, as

    p. 274

    also His bidding the glorious Magdalen to 'go in peace.' 10 Our Lord's words act within us, 11 and in these cases they must have wrought their effect in the souls already disposed to banish from within themselves all that is corporal and to retain only what is spiritual, in order to be joined in this celestial union with the uncreated Spirit. Without doubt, if we empty ourselves of all that belongs to the creature, depriving ourselves of it for the love of God, that same Lord will fill us with Himself.

    10. Our Lord Jesus Christ, praying for His Apostles, (I cannot remember the reference),asked that they might be made one with the Father and with Himself; as Jesus Christ our Lord is in the Father and the Father in Him! 12 I do not know how love could be greater than this! Let none draw back from entering here, for His Majesty also said: 'Not only for them do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in Me'; 13 and He declared: 'I am in them.' 14

    11. God help me! how true these words are, and how clearly are they understood by the soul which in this state of prayer finds them fulfilled in itself! So should we all but for our own fault, for the words of Jesus Christ, our King and our Lord, cannot fail. It is we who fail by not disposing ourselves fitly, nor removing all that can obstruct this light,


    Actually in this Saint Teresa is the clearest of any spiritual writer I have ever read on this subject. In this she has the additional great advantage of having gone through spiritual marriage herself. She can not only talk the talk , she has actually walked the walk, which makes such a difference.
     
  2. padraig

    padraig Powers

    I am sorry, I had a sleepless night. I'll write more on this tomorrow at length.
     
  3. bflocatholic

    bflocatholic Powers

    Thank you Padraig. As always, a beautiful reflection... I look forward to the next installment!
     
  4. padraig

    padraig Powers

    Thanks Bi, nice to see someone is reading this. :)
     
  5. padraig

    padraig Powers

    I have a few minutes before I wander off to mass so I'll just write a short message.

    It may seem sometimes in reading stuff like this to have the reaction,

    'Oh well this has nothing to do with me, I am just an ordinary Catholic, this is far out stuff'.

    But this is not so . This is for all of us. God wants us , every bit of us, every inch of us, for His love for us is so intense He wants to just burn us up in His love so much we become second Jesus's. Perfectly Christ and yet perfectly ourselves. He intends to fill us up so much with His grace that we overflow.

    So this destiny , of Spiritual Marriage is , I believe all our common inheritance as Christians. We may get married to God in this life, or we may get married tp God in the next. but make no mistake WE WILL GET MARRIED, or..and this again is my personal believe we will not see heaven. Some Theologians may disagree with this , but this is what I believe, which is why scripture refers to heaven as the marriage feast and to those who enter heaven as wearing marriage robes of white.

    This too is why so many of the sacraments mirror this fact. For instance in Earthly Marriage we prefigure the souls marriage to Christ. The Religious when she or he takes their own vows they also prefigure the heavenly marriage. This is our destiny. This is our hope, this is Christ's promise to the faithful.

    So for the Christian to say he/she is not concerned in this is wrong, for it is the same thing as saying we do not care were Jesus is leading us, for it is to this place He is leading us...and for all Eternity.[​IMG]
     
  6. Mario

    Mario Powers

    Padraig,

    In the Bread of Life discourse found in John 6, Jesus says the following:

    He who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

    Jesus alone satisfies. There is no need to look elsewhere. During the Offertory, the Celebrant places a few drops of water into the wine. The water is still there, yet unseen. To all appearances, the chalice is full only of wine. This is my desire: to be united intimately to Christ in such a way that Jesus shines forth. Let me be discarded and another be honored. In my soul Christ dwells. I am content.

    Geralyn and I have been married now for 26 years. When I gaze at her, I am filled with a quiet joy. I never question her fidelity. Never do I doubt the permanence of our marriage bond. Even more so with Jesus! As the Lord proclaims through Hosea:

    2:19-20 "I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, In lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the LORD.

    Let me be clear. I am not in the seventh stage. Yet, it is a burning desire within me! Let me ask you this. In what way does the Spiritual Marriage quench that desire this side of the grave?

    Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
     
  7. padraig

    padraig Powers

    Yes Terry, you are right, you remind me of the question Jesus was asked one time by some awkward customers who did not understand what you wrote:

    Matthew 22: (23-28)

    The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying: "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her."


    It's very clear to see in His answer that Jesus is very annoyed at the Saducees (who did not believe in heaven /Spiritual Marriage and thus had a very materialist way of looking at things}. Jesus was annoyed I think, partly in that they were trying to trip Him up ..and those guys were ALWAYS trying to trip Him up. But I think He was chiefly concerned that their view of things was so very,very ,very unspiritual. Their eyes were not fixed on the things of heaven but the things of Earth.

    "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord"

    Augustine


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    Then Jesus gave the answer, which astonished the listeners:

    {30-33)

    "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.


    Why no marriage in heaven? Because on our entrance to heaven we shall already be married...to God Himself.

    'God became man so that man might become a god." (cf. St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione or On the Incarnation 54:3, PG 25:192B; also Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 460)

    "Eye has not seen nor ear has heard." (1 Corinthians 2:9; Isaiah 64:4)

    Nor of course is it any accident that earlier on in Chapter 22 Matthew, in the parable of the Wedding Banquet, the Apostle points again to spiritual marriage with yet another marriage story and if you use your bible concordance and type in 'marriage' you will see stories of marriages cropping up pretty well everywhere:

    Matthew 22
    The Parable of the Wedding Banquet
    1Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2"The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

    4"Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.'

    5"But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

    8"Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' 10So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

    11"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless.

    13"Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

    14"For many are invited, but few are chosen."


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    ...and of course even the Mass itself is a type of the heavenly banquet, the eternal banquet, the Marriage Feast, in which God, Himself shall come to rest in our souls for all eternity.
     
  8. padraig

    padraig Powers

    I see someone from the Ukraine is joining us in reading this, :)

    бажаний, приємний, вітати;ласкаво просимо!

    [​IMG]
     
  9. padraig

    padraig Powers

    Anyhow to return to the thread. I will use some images to describe how I myself experienced the ceremony of Spiritual Marriage and how I experience it in my soul and how it effects you down the passing years.

    As I mentioned before God is a bit like a very good mannered gentleman of great quality. In fact the nature of love makes Him this way. For consider what love actually is. It is not an emotion, though it will of course {we having hearts } usually express itself in emotional terms. Love is I believe the gifting of oneself to the other and in so gifting oneself to become one with the other. Again we see this in human marriage were a couple after a long period of time may {perhaps this is my imagination, but I have noticed this} actually begin to look alike!

    [​IMG]

    God wants this for us, that we should love so much we actually become like Him. However God may be all powerful. But He is as powerless as a little child in this. That He cannot force love. For of course if He were to force love, it would not be love. If you see what I mean. So God taps the door of our hearts like a little child and begs us to let Him in.

    Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

    [​IMG]
     
  10. padraig

    padraig Powers

    Its so long since I posted on this I have kind of lost my thread, so I am sorry if what I write now seems disjointed.

    Lets turn to the actual mystical ceremony of Mystical Marriage as it has been reported down the ages by Prayer Pilgrims and have a look at them and see what it can teach us, then I'll turn to how I experienced it myself. I'll be doing this because I believe for modern folks in the West things may go a little different than it did in times past.

    Just to note first what the Catholic Encyclopedia has to say on the subject:

    In the Old and the New Testament, the love of God for man, and, in particular His relations with His chosen people (whether of the Synagogue or of the Church), are frequently typified under the form of the relations between bridegroom and bride. In like manner, Christian virginity been considered from the earliest centuries as a special offering made by the soul to its spouse, Christ. Nothing else seems to have been meant in speaking of the mystical nuptials of St. Agnes and of St. Catherine of Alexandria. These primitive notions were afterwards developed more completely, and the phrase mystical marriage has been taken in two different senses, the one wide and the other more restricted.

    (1) In many of the lives of the saints, the wide sense is intended. Here the mystical marriage consists in a vision in which Christ tells a soul that He takes it for His bride, presenting it with the customary ring, and the apparition is accompanied by a ceremony; the Blessed Virgin, saints, and angels are present. This festivity is but the accompaniment and symbol of a purely spiritual grace; hagiographers do not make clear what this grace is, but it may at least be said that the soul receives a sudden augmentation of charity and of familiarity with God, and that He will thereafter take more special care of it. All this, indeed, is involved in the notion of marriage. Moreover, as a wife should share in the life of her husband, and as Christ suffered for the redemption of mankind, the mystical spouse enters into a more intimate participation in His sufferings. Accordingly, in three cases out of every four, the mystical marriage has been granted to stigmatics. It has been estimated by Dr. Imbert that, from the earliest times to the present, history has recorded seventy-seven mystical marriages; they are mentioned in connection with female saints, beatae, and venerabiles — e.g. Blessed Angela of Foligno, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Colette, St. Teresa, St. Catherine of Ricci, Venerable Marina d'Escobar, St. Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi, St. Veronica Giuliani, Venerable Maria de Agreda. Religious art has exercised its resources upon mystical marriage, considered as a festive celebration. That of St. Catherine of Alexandria is the subject of Memling's masterpiece (in the Hospital St. Jean, Bruges), as also of paintings by Jordaens (Madrid), Corregio (Naples and the Louvre), and others. Fra Bartolommeo has done as much for St. Catherine of Siena.

    (2) In a more restricted sense, the term mystical marriage is employed by St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross to designate that mystical union with God which is the most exalted condition attainable by the soul in this life. It is also called a "transforming union", "consummate union", and "deification". St. Teresa likewise calls it "the seventh resting-place" of the "interior castle"; she speaks of it only in that last treatise which she composed five years before her death, when she had been but recently raised to this degree. This state consists of three elements:

    * The first is an almost continual sense of the presence of God, even in the midst of external occupations. This favour does not of itself produce an alienation of the senses; ecstasies are more rare. Nor does this permanent sense of God's presence suffice to constitute the spiritual marriage, but is only a state somewhat near to it.
    * The second element is a transformation of the higher faculties in respect to their mode of operation: hence the name "transforming union"; it is the essential note of the state. The soul is conscious that in its supernatural acts of intellect and of will, it participates in the Divine life and the analogous acts in God. To understand what is meant by this, it must be remembered that in heaven we are not only to enjoy the vision of God, but to feel our participation in His nature. Mystical writers have sometimes exaggerated in describing this grace; it has been said that we think by the eternal thought of God, love by His infinite love, and will by His will. Thus, they appear to confound the two natures, the Divine and the human. They are describing what they believe they feel; like the astronomers, they speak the language of appearances, which we find easier to understand. Here, as in human marriage, there is a fusion of two lives.
    * The third element consists in an habitual vision of the Blessed Trinity or of some Divine attribute. This grace is sometimes accorded before the transforming union. Certain authors appear to hold that in the transforming union there is produced a union with the Divine Word more special than that with the other two Divine Persons; but there is no proof that this is so in all cases. St. Teresa gives the name of "spiritual betrothal" to passing foretastes of the transforming union, such as occur in raptures.


    You know I searched the internet for ten minutes there and could not find an authentic account of Spiritual Marriage from some one who had it.

    But, anyway, the way it generally goes is that the person has a vision of Our Lady who presents them to Christ in the presence of saints and angels and the prayer pilgrim has a ring, often jewelled placed on their finger. Some times there is even a trace of this ring the person can 'see' from then on in.

    This is not always necessary. Saint Therese of Liseaux ,from her writings had clearly entered Mystical Marriage but there was no big song and dance about it in fact she moved in great darkness. Visions and such like are only there as needed and are highly symbolic to help folks understand what is happening.

    In my own case it happened near the monastery one fine May morning. I used to take the sheep dogs for a walk and was down in the trees when I felt myself interiorly lifted up and a voice inside me said, quite simply, 'Now you understand' and set me down again and that was that.
     
  11. padraig

    padraig Powers

    I know now one of the reasons why folks do not write much about this final prayer stage. Its because in a kind of way there is really so little one can say about it. Prayer and the spiritual journey does not become more complicated and hard to understand but resolves itself into greater and greater simplicity. I experience this prayer as a constant simple prayer that never ceases. It is a bit like breathing in and out or your heart beating. It never stops , not for a second. No matter how busy I am, no matter how distracted, or sad or under pressure the heart like a little faithful dog always sits staring .communing with eyes of love at Lord. Oh yes like a swarm of bees the thoughts will wander all over the place but the heart always kneels in the presence of the Lord. This equips the soul in a most excellent manner for Apostolic action as it is being continually renewed and so never tires. In a sense now one might no longer talk of the soul 'praying', for the soul no longer prays it has become prayer. The soul no longer says the rosary for it becomes the rosary. If you look at prayer as a stream that trickles through the heart now it becomes a mighty flowing river that innundates and constantly floods the heart ,submerging it, of you like in the Holy Spirit. God always walks with the soul in terms of the Holy Spirit it is like having a direct line, He is always at the other end of the phone ready to answer ....

    Here are a few questions I used to have about this state. I've had quite a few years to think about these things and these are the answers I have come up with.

    Do many people enter this state of Spiritual Marriage in this Life?

    I used to think not but life has taught me to change my mind. Firstly in working in a hospice and observing folks in the death process. For death , like prayer is a process with differing and clearly identifiable stages.

    For instance the late Dr Elizabeth Kubler Ross talks of five stages:

    http://www.businessballs.com/elisabeth_ ... s_of_grief

    [​IMG]

    It seems to me when people are packing their bags to get ready to go back home to God, this death process is very like the spiritual processes or stages involved in prayer. For prayer too is a dying to oneself.

    "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)

    Take for instance John Smith. John is a good devout Catholic man and has spent his life working very hard and bringing up a large family. He would genuinely like to have spent more time on prayer and the spiritual life but has just not had the time. But later John's family grows up and leaves home, he retires from work and has much more time to spend exclusively with God. It seems to me that this hunger, thirst thirst for God which John has never had the chance to slake forms a kind of kinetic or stored up spiritual energy which comes forth like a great tide or flood. So when the chance for John to give himself more fully to prayer he can fire forward like a rocket ship :D

    Taking this a step forward and suppose John contracts cancer and enters the death process this may even fire him forward even faster on the spiritual path and as much may be accomplished in his soul in days which would ordinarily take many, many years. This is because his soul is being got ready by the Holy Spirit for heaven. In ordinary circumstances he might have to give things up, when he has cancer these things are taken away from him. Since he is dying nothing really has any importance, wealth, fame, reputation, work everything is fading going. ...and this too is part of the natural process of aging.

    So I think in a real sense it does not matter how soon we enter this last stage of prayer, the important thing is that we reach it. My own personal suspicion is that many , may souls get there on their death beds. Priests report from the confessional the extraordinary graces of prayer many, many Catholics get in old age. They may never have read a book on prayer or understand what is happening in their souls, but it happening just the same.[​IMG]
     
  12. padraig

    padraig Powers

    So that the soul can be seen as being like a little bird that is tied to the ground from flying to the sky, by cutting the strings of attachments we are enabled to fly away. I think this is one of the reasons why we often witness profound mystical experiences amongst the dying, the web of earthly attachments are severed and we get ready to fly.

    But its important to recall that the symbol of our faith is the cross and all that it means for the path of prayer.

    [​IMG]

    To follow Christ is to follow the Cross and looking back at our Fathers in the Faith it was always those who were closet to the Cross who followed Christ must closely:

    1 Corinthians 1:27–30.

    27 God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.


    So the first Christians who opted for the faith were slaves and the poorest of the poor . For only when we are empty can God come to fill us. The poor and the sick, for it was the deaf, the blind, the lame, the poor who sought out healing and the jewels of the Good News and the rich who disdained the Gospel. Two thousand years later and as we look round us we see that nothing has changed. We who live in the rich countries of the Earth see the Faith most dwindling and it is in the poor areas, such as Africa, that the faith has grown. It is easy to fill the hungry with the bread of prayer, the food of the Gospel, but for those who are already filled.....

    So when we look at the Cross we see the wisdom of the world turned on its head.......our whole way of looking at things is confounded.

    Corinthians 1:17-31 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
    18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
    19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
    20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
    21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
    22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
    23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
    24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
    25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
    26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
    27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
    28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
    29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
    30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

    31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
     
  13. padraig

    padraig Powers

    .....................So that the Cross turns everything on its head as far as prayer and the Spiritual Life is concerned. The folks who are doing well are filled up and have no room for more. The poor and needy have an emptiness and need filled and there is room for the Spirit which the Holy Spirit rushes to fill up.

    Which, of course, is exactly what Our Lady says in the Magnificat:

    My soul magnifies the Lord,
    And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
    For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
    For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
    For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
    He has shown strength with His arm:
    He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
    He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
    and exalted those of low degree.
    He has filled the hungry with good things;
    and the rich He has sent empty away.
    He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
    As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.

    Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
    As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen


    [​IMG]

    By the way, this picture is in the Brooklyn Museum, I hadn't seen it before, it is very beautiful.

    But my point here is that there is so very,very, very much poverty, suffering and emptiness in the world that there must be very, very many people not only walking the ways of prayer but actually running in them.

    This is illustrated by a story I read a while back about a party of Christian missionaries in a rural area of the very poorest part of India. These people had really nothing and were literally living from hand to mouth. never even knowing if they would have enough to feed themselves from day to day. The missionaries were very concerned about this and were discussing writing home to get urgent supplies out to save this village.

    But the Elders of the Village summoned the missionaries to have a talk with them in the forest near were they lived. The missionaries assumed that this meeting was to beg for help and they happily discussed what they would tell the Village Elders they had so far down to help bring in supplies.

    But to their astonishment the Elders were concerned about conditions in the West and wanted to hear from the Missionaries what their village could do to help . They said that the West was Spiritually dead , that all the villagers felt a great compassion for the West and wanted top know what they could do to help......

    “The spiritual poverty of the Western World is much greater than the physical poverty of our people,You, in the West, have millions of people who suffer such terrible loneliness and emptiness. They feel unloved and unwanted. These people are not hungry in the physical sense, but they are in another way. They know they need something more than money, yet they don't know what it is.What they are missing, really, is a living relationship with God.

    [​IMG]

    I'll give you an example of what happened to me recently. I went out with my sisters in Calcutta to seek out the sick and dying. We picked up about 40 people that day. One woman, covered in a dirty cloth, was very ill and I could see it. So I just held her thin hand and tried to comfort her. She smiled weakly at me and said, ‘Thank you.’ Then she died. “She was more concerned to give to me than to receive from me. I put myself in her place and I thought what I would have done. I am sure I would have said, ‘I am dying, I am hungry, call a doctor, call a Father, call somebody.’ “But what she did was so beautiful. I have never seen a smile like that. It was just perfect. It was just a heavenly gift. That woman was more concerned with me than I was with her.” ”
    Mother Teresa

    But my main point being ,were there is so much emptiness in the world and suffering there will also be so much grace rushing in to fill the needs. I also believe that never in the whole history of the world has there been so much sin, but were sin abounds there also will grace even more greatly abound, for were the Mercy of God is concerned, it is without limits.

    Romans 5:20
    20The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,


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  14. padraig

    padraig Powers

    One of the most interesting things concerning all this is what is happening in the world in our present days as we do as Our Lady and Our Lord tells us and 'Read the Signs of the Times'.

    THE ANNUAL APPARITION OF OUR LADY TO MIRJANA DRAGICEVIC-SOLDO ON MARCH
    18, 2006

    "Dear children! In this Lenten time, I call you to interior renunciation. The way to this leads you through love, fasting, prayer and good works. Only with total interior renunciation will you recognize God's love and the signs of the time in which you live. You will be witnesses of these signs and will begin to speak about them. I desire to bring you to this. Thank you for having responded to me."


    "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;the sea and the waves roaring;" Luke 21:25

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    Its interesting because the world is entering a time of Tribulation that the world has never seen before, nor will, I suspect see again until the end of the world. A period that will dwarf the Dark Ages that struck the world for instance at the Fall of the Roman Empire. A Tribulation that will lend with the dawn of the Triumph of Mary and the Church.

    Matthew 24:21 For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now--and never to be equaled again.

    Daniel 12:1 "Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.

    Joel 2:2 A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn is spread over the mountains, So there is a great and mighty people; There has never been anything like it, Nor will there be again after it To the years of many generations.

    Ezekiel 5:9 'And because of all your abominations, I will do among you what I have not done, and the like of which I will never do again.

    Matthew 24:21 "For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.

    Mark 13:19 "For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will.


    So that as all our material crutch's which we keep us removed from God are removed we , the whole world collectively enter a great dark night we shall more and more have nowhere else to turn but to God. This as we together move towards our own Spiritual Marriage the Triumph of Mary and our Holy Mother , the Church.

    [​IMG]

    So the People of God are drawn to great, very great holiness in these dark days for these are days of the gravest choices for those who do not choose to follow Christ and to follow Christ with ALL THEIR HEARTS......will scatter.
     
  15. padraig

    padraig Powers

    There is one thing about the path of prayer that many people have not yet realised but will more and more as the Darkness around us deepens. This is that as sin abounds, so does grace the more abound. We march as Mary's army into the dark and roar of Battle.

    Song of Solomon 6:10 Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?

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    We have been used up to now to consider the Church as an institution and so when we think of her we think of Church's, school's, hospitals, her strict hierarchy of priest , bishops, Cardinals and the Holy Father, the Vatican itself, a regime of Mass and devotions. of things certain and firm. But it was not always thus, nor shall it be again. There was a time when the people of God were a poor and shattered and persecuted people, held together by a rich tapestry of grace. Thus it was and thus it shall be again as we march with our new Moses into the desert.

    Anyway this all reminds me of what Mary said one time to Saint Catherine Laboure at the series of apparitions that started on the July 18, 1830 at the Rue de Bac in Paris, France. Mary showed herself to Saint Catherine with her hands outstretched as on the Miraculous Medal with streams of many coloured lights, the different graces that stream from her upon the world.

    [​IMG]

    These rays are the symbol of the graces that the Blessed Virgin obtains for those who ask them of her. But Mary also pointed out that many graces are not obtained by folks, because they do not ask for them.

    We are Pilgrim People of Prayer and we are at the beginning of a long journey. Our dear mother loves us so much she has even packed our suitcases for us, full of special graces. But how are we to get them if we do not open the suitcase and take them out.

    My point is as the world darkness round us we will be called very swiftly to greater and greater holiness. But as the darkness deepens , so will our needs. Graces will be available to us to supply those needs even in quite exceptional, even miraculous ways if we call upon them, if only we trust, if only we ask.

    Let me give an example. IT technology is very advanced now. It will be very difficult for folks to escape surveillance. However it will be a great advantage to be able to recognise and trust each other as people of prayer when we meet and not be deceived. At the time of the Catacombs , Christians recognised each other by tracing the Sign of the Fish on the ground. I am afraid such simple tricks will not work in the future however if we can see each other for what we are by mystical signs which are enemies cannot tell.....

    [​IMG]

    ...another example is when we are hungry and ask for food that the very little food we have may well multiply.....
     
  16. Mario

    Mario Powers

    Padraig,

    I've had an experience in prayer and I would appreciate your input. For a few years I have been plagued by spiritual dryness. My meditations have been marred by lethargy and a lack of direction. The difficulties in life have invaded my prayer and have easily distracted me. I've been dogged by a weight of probable sins to blame for my inattention. My spiritual director has instructed me to stay the course and examine whether or not I've been seeking hoped-for consolations to reverse the dry pattern.

    Well, Thursday night I went to Adoration (11pm-Midnight) expecting the usual sleepiness propped up by a Chaplet and short prayers of love to Christ. However, I was surprised to find my heart alert and my focus uncluttered. There was a deep joy that wasn't emotional, but quiet as I gazed at Jesus. At what I thought was half past the hour, I heard my friend Mark enter the Church as he usually does. Suddenly, I realized it was not Mark, but my pastor, Fr. John. It was already five minutes after midnight. Where had all the time gone?!

    I have experienced similar prayer in the past, but it seems so long ago. :shock: In addition, this quiet, attentive attitude has persisted until now, even though I missed Holy Mass today. Now, my work life has not had its usual struggles and in that sense there is less external turmoil. So was my adoration time simply a response of relief, was this episode an indication of any particular action on God's part, or is this this merely a short lull before I'm plunged into the dryness, again? Even so, I feel no anxiety regarding the loss of this little oasis.

    Peaceably curious. :)

    Terry

    Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
     
  17. padraig

    padraig Powers

    Hi Terry,

    I hope this finds you well. I was praying about your post and have quite a bit to write so I'll do this tomorrow when I have a little more time and prayed a bit more about this.
     
  18. padraig

    padraig Powers

    Terry,

    Prayer is a bit like a river, running through the land of the heart to the sea of God's love. At the start it can be quite dramatic with waterfalls and rapids running so swiftly and carving waterfalls and rapids, with much noise and foam, so much so that it can cause others to come and stare and perhaps even given the soul and others who come {if they are not careful and humble} to stare a maybe inflated sense of how well things are going. :wink:

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    Off to mass,,,write more when I get back!!
     
  19. padraig

    padraig Powers

    However as the river of prayer runs down through the country of life it becomes more mature, it deepens slows and is inclined to meander a bit more, in some ways it seems less exciting, less interesting, but, in fact the river has much more power and effect in the rocks of our Heart as it transforms us more and more powerfully into the image of Christ.

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    ......and now the river of prayer may perform something quite extraordinary and finding a cleft in the rocks of the soul it may sink deep within the heart and go underground going deep. deep below and appear, to all who look for it to have disappeared!!

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    Now were the river is least seen, deep in the rocks of the heart it is most powerful cutting into the hearts heart of the soul.

    The soul itself too is in darkness, for this is the deep prayer of faith and darkness. Now like a little bird it looks to the sky in hope for the dawn, with eyes of pure love and faith.

    Like the watchman who waits for the coming of day break it waits for the morning.

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    However here the rock may be diamond hard and the river of grace and love has a battle on its hands, sometimes fighting for eons against the rock as it clears the way to the sea of love. Sometimes the river suddenly breaks down obstacles and a sea of water burst forth in a mighty fountain, up, out of the dark right to the sky, in a mighty geyser startling the onlookers who give praise to God's glory!!

    [​IMG]

    ..and so it is, Terry, I believe, with your heart in prayer at the minute
     
  20. padraig

    padraig Powers

    [​IMG]The Cure of Ars one time told a story in a sermon. An peasant used to come to his church for mass every morning and he always left his spade outside the Church door to be collected, after mass on his way to a long days wok in the fields.

    Coming back to the Church one day the Cure found the peasants spade still at the door of the Church and, being concerned Saint John Vainney went inside to see if the old guy was alright. He found the man inside lost in prayer. He had gotten do wrapped up in his prayers he had lost track of time and gotten stuck there all day!

    The Cure asked the old man what he had been doing all day? The peasant replied,

    'I look at God and God looks at me...'

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