But this constant prayer is merely the outer expression of a profound inner reality . That the soul is constantly hugging God in an endless embrace of love. The soul is lost in God and God is lost in the soul. The very ante room of Heaven. Heaven on Earth.
One thing about prayer and that is the longer you walk in its path the more mysterious and supernatural it appears and the less you describe it to others. You enter into the realm of the indescribable. So in Scripture we often see them describing things like heaven in terms of jewels and a great eternal hymn of millions of voices. But unless we have actually been in heaven we cannot really understand. As St Paul says eye has not seen nor tongue told. So too with prayer. One way of explaining it is in terms of paradox. Of trying to rest it between two stools. It used to really annoy me in reading books on prayer that they would describe all the prayer stages in great detail when it came to the last stage, Spiritual Marriage they totally dried up. Just a few short words then nothing. It seems to me that there there are three main reasons for this. The first that we would be trying to describe the indescribable. The second that such books are teaching tools and people who reach this stage kinda know it all anyway . The third is that most of the authors have never entered this state themselves and so when we get to this state they little to say on it. But I love what St Peter said; 2 Peter 1:19 So we have the prophetic word made more certain. You do well to pay [close] attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and light breaks through the gloom and the morning star arises in your hearts.
I have found throughout my life the prayer journey a real delight. But not only that very,very interesting, I loved reading books about it all and especially talking to people about it. Although it is very rare for myself as a layperson to find people who will share about it. It is such a rare thing to find someone to open up. I did one time find someone one time who admitted he was in the State of Spiritual Marriage. He was a Dominican Archbishop who had been through a very great deal of suffering. The only reason he told me was I asked him directly if he was. Which I suppose may have been very,very cheeky and nosey of me but I was so curious. The reason why I suspected was I put two and two together from talks he had given on prayer. Sometimes we can clearly tell from writers on prayer that that is where they are at. Maybe not because they directly say it but because they imply it. I always pay particular attention to such folk because they Have experienced. So they really know what they are talking about. A good modern example is the English Carmelite Prioress Ruth Burroughs (Not her real name), Whose books I highly recommend. https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/...vrsFy5yOHtYkUnhw9AEA6kPqzJpIgKPgaAqR8EALw_wcB
Without a doubt, constantly talking about God is a characteristic of those who have understood parts of the meaning of life. There’s a trick that involves analyzing every word or phrase the priest says during Mass. One phrase per Mass. It works well for me with the help of the Holy Spirit, because a single phrase opens the door to a small contemplative world, and my knowledge increases as I experience a gentle bombardment of certainties within me. Something similar happens to me with the Rosary, but it’s even more pronounced at Mass. The premise for all of this to happen stems from the concept of a God who is sublime Love, and I want to join that chorus of saints and angels surrounding the altar to shout, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of the universe.” Sometimes my voice overpowers the sound system, and then I feel a bit hesitant about overstepping.
Saint John Crysostom wrote beautifully about this: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2068347423465769/posts/3384925578474607/
Why go to Mass? ⛪♀️♂️ 1. At the hour of your death, your greatest comfort will be the Masses you attended with fervor and devotion during your life. 2. Every Mass you attended will accompany you before the divine tribunal and plead for you to receive forgiveness. 3. With each Mass you can lessen the temporal punishment you owe for your sins, in proportion to the fervor with which you hear it. 4. By devoutly attending Holy Mass, you pay the greatest homage to the Most Holy Humanity of Our Lord. 5. A Holy Mass well attended makes up for your many negligences and omissions. 6. By devoutly attending Holy Mass, all venial sins that you are resolved to avoid are forgiven, as well as many others that you don’t even remember. 7. Thru her, the demon also loses dominion over you. 8. You offer the greatest comfort to the blessed souls in Purgatory. 9. You receive blessings in your business and temporal affairs. 10. A Mass heard while you are alive will benefit you much more than many offered for you after death. 11. You are spared many dangers and misfortunes that you might otherwise fall into were it not for the Holy Mass. 12. Remember also that with her you shorten your Purgatory. 13. With each Mass you will increase your degrees of glory in Heaven. In it you receive the priest’s blessing, which God ratifies in heaven. 14. Whoever hears Mass every day, God will deliver him from a tragic death, and his guardian angel will keep in mind the steps he takes to go to Mass, and God will reward him for them at his death. 15. During Mass, you kneel amid a multitude of angels who invisibly attend the Holy Sacrifice with utmost reverence. 16. When we attend Mass in honor of a particular Saint, giving thanks to God for the favors granted to that Saint, we cannot but secure his protection and special love, by the honor, joy, and happiness that result from our good deed. 17. Every day we attend Mass, it would be good, in addition to our other intentions, to honor the Saint of the day. 18. The Mass is the greatest gift that can be offered to the Lord for souls, to bring them out of purgatory, free them from their sufferings, and lead them to enjoy glory. – Saint Bernard of Siena. 19. Whoever attends Mass, prays, gives alms, or prays for the souls in Purgatory works to his own benefit. – Saint Augustine. 20. For every Mass celebrated or heard with devotion, many souls are released from Purgatory, and the sufferings of those who remain there are lessened. – St. Gregory the Great, Pope. 21. During the celebration of Mass, the punishments of the souls for whom the priest prays and acts are suspended, and especially those for whom he offers the Mass. –Saint Gregory the Great. 22. You can also gain a Plenary Indulgence every Monday of the year by offering Holy Mass and receiving Holy Communion for the relief of the blessed souls in Purgatory. For the faithful who cannot attend Mass on Monday, it is sufficient to attend Mass on Sunday with that intention. 23. Please apply all indulgences in suffrage for the Souls in Purgatory, for God our Lord and they will reward you for this charity. 24. The Holy Mass is the renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary, the greatest act of worship of the Most Holy Trinity. That is why it is obligatory to attend it every Sunday and on holy days of obligation.
When we are baptized, we receive an exorcism. Baptism makes us Christians by the grace of God. That grace allows us to continue receiving the subsequent sacraments, enabling us to advance along a narrow and arduous path on which we gradually imitate Christ, who overcame the world, and to rise with Him to true eternal life. It seems like a masochistic path, since we must gradually renounce worldly pleasures and even ourselves and our selfish desires. Our primary role ultimately becomes that of servants of God and of our fellow human beings. Without a doubt, it’s an incredibly difficult task that undermines our desire to be important in this life. We are raised in a competitive and uncooperative society. As if that weren’t enough, we have to forgive all the offenses we receive, accept the pain and powerlessness, and pray for our enemies so that they may attain salvation. Have you ever tried explaining this to an atheist or an agnostic? You’ll see their eyes go square. Then they will ask us: And how can we, poor imperfect beings, beggars, obtain something like that? Our response will be: We eat our God so that He may dwell in us and we in Him. - Good heavens! You’re all acting like goats! And dear brothers, we must certainly be fools for God. We must become fools for God. You have to ask for it every day; make no mistake, because there’s no other way. God’s love is the delight of mankind, and none of this can be achieved without the constant love that God pours into our hearts.
We are aware that we exist (and are therefore conscious) as unique individuals, endowed with a complex system of knowledge and will, who over time have made decisions, expanded our knowledge in every branch of human learning, and formulated millions of thoughts and imaginative combinations based on those ideas. We have developed an artistic sense and can appreciate both beauty and ugliness. We distinguish between good and evil as if that knowledge were hardwired into our very being, and we also feel a strong transcendent longing. We are called to transcend the material existence of space and time. We are extraordinary and intensely strange beings because from our torso emerge limbs that end in small hooks and nails. We can truly analyze our body as a wonderful, strange machine, but never an ugly one. Now let’s ask a simple question: Where is all the knowledge and data we handle stored? Consider that to quickly catch a pencil falling from the table before it hits the floor, we’ve activated a magnitude of systems and data that would fill many computer hard drives. And that’s just the beginning, because we’ve even come to say that “knowledge takes up no space” (it’s a Spanish saying). Indeed, we can learn languages, university degrees (my son learned the names of all the Pokémon), and it doesn’t seem to take up any particular space. Our head doesn’t grow. What's happening? We can discover that when we experience certainty in our intellect, doubts disappear and we often exclaim, “It’s true!” There’s no doubt in a child’s mind when his father has just explained how to solve a math problem. It seems we’ve always known that, but we’d forgotten it. There is a reunion with the truth. We don’t know exactly whether our existence has always been and our names were already written in a book in heaven, but we do know that for God the present, the future, and the past come together in BEING, and it is a pure ACT. He lacks nothing; nothing is superfluous to Him. He has everything in abundance; everything is good, unchanging, all-powerful, beautiful, true, and all-encompassing. When we reach heaven, we won’t be as we are now, but perfect, with all our gifts active. We will be living bricks of the New Jerusalem. Indispensable pieces for loving and being loved without limit. No eye has seen, no ear has heard what awaits us with God.
