Author Topic: Silence! Mental, Vocal Prayer, etc. (Read 2486 times)

Nandarani · « **Reply #15 on:** July 26, 2018, 01:15:04 PM »

This is an example of a woman who is extremely gifted in communication and who is effortlessly without rereading rigidly controlling her female tendency to speak and volubility. This is very inspiring, especially for females. She refers to herself, 'my wings droop' or something very similar but 'wings and droop' are included, at being female and of course counseled her sisters in her charge to be strong men. She lamented any man not using his gifts to the max, and had a life long attraction to men who did. Men who took themselves seriously.

However clearly I may wish to describe these matters which concern prayer, they will be very obscure to anyone who has no experience of it. I shall describe certain hindrances, which, as I understand it, prevent people from making progress on this road, and also certain other sources of danger about which the Lord has taught me by experience. More recently I have discussed these things with men of great learning and persons who have led spiritual lives for many years; and they have seen that in the twenty-seven years during which I have been practicing prayer, His Majesty has given me experiences, ill as I have walked and often as I have stumbled on this road, for which others need thirty-seven, or even forty-seven, in spite of having made steady progress and practiced penitence and attained virtue. May His Majesty be blessed for everything, and may He, for His name's sake, make use of me. For my Lord well knows that I have no other desire than this, that He may be praised and magnified a little when it is seen that on so foul and malodorous a dunghill He has planted a garden of sweet flowers. May His Majesty grant that I may not root them up through my faults and become what I was before. This I beseech Your Reverence, for love of the Lord, to beg Him for me, for you know what I am more clearly than you have permitted me to say here.

Nandarani · « **Reply #16 on:** July 30, 2018, 12:18:19 PM »

To simultaneously develop another level along with St. Terese's effect, comes back The Mystical City of God to which had been listening from librivox many months ago, and looked for a pdf. I tried to research why Timothy Duff's new English version might be best but could find no definite information - though - what made up my mind was that I checked the very beginning, the first few sentences, and saw that the 1912 version which the translator says took 15 years of hard work and reflects closely the actual original Spanish I prefer.

I want to have an overview, now. I am too tuned into the struggles of people on the street - want to have an overall context. Though the very beginning of TMCG is dense, it does give a bird's eye view. Here is part of the introduction by the translator. This is probably understood by everybody but it is nice to see it in words.

It does seem that He prefers women for private revelation. He chose men to reveal the great public truths of the Bible and to attend to the public teaching, but to women in the new law He seems to have consigned the task of private revelations. At least most of the known private revelations have been furnished us by women and not men. We must infer from this that they are better adapted for this work. In fact, no special learning or great natural insight is required of a messenger; such qualities might tend to corrupt or narrow down the inspired message to mere human proportions, whereas pri vate revelation is given precisely for the purpose of communicating higher truths than can be known or under stood naturally. Humility, great piety and love, deep faith are the requisites of God s special messengers. Women as a rule are more inclined to these virtues than men, and therefore are not so apt to trim the message of God down to their own natural powers of understanding. In choosing women for his special revelations He gives us to understand from the outset, that what He wishes to reveal is above the natural faculties of perception and insight of either man or woman.

Nandarani · « **Reply #17 on:** July 30, 2018, 06:14:13 PM »

No quote here. But there are pages of choice ones from Sr. Mary of Agreda about the over 10 years she spent in resisting Our Lord, St. Michael, and a group of specifically deputed angels instructed to with 'lightest breath' illumine her intellect about the wisdom of simply obedience to make it logical in this instance like the other one - Made under obedience to accept being in charge of her convent at 25 she was assured guidance and teaching by Our Lady to handle the responsibility. But writing was absolutely not what she wanted to do at all.

Since this gets directly on the subject of one of the things missing from a protestant upbringing here is a list: any born Catholic person reading can again understand what an irreplaceable gift the shambles of the Church is even now to someone who was born into it.

1. Obedience. In the end, no one to obey or respect because no
2. Discussion of sin ever in any specific way using terms like venial or mortal, or a clear description of original sin's impact.
3. No such thing as penance and associated matters - no teeth. And most of all,

4. No Our Lady. That one, #4, destroys Protestantism.

We will get back to St. Terese of Jesus. For me the Consecration to Jesus through Mary is upcoming in a few weeks.

One final thought, as so often earlier in the thread, we have marvelous instances of Our Lord working with a soul and priceless verbal evidence of same.

In the case of Sr. Mary of Agreda one passage ends with, so 'Obey, soul!"

In the end only obedience to her superiors did the trick but as she herself noted, after so much time resisting, her soul had evolved - and that is what happens with all of us.

That is what gets me about those on the street and why I see my limitations: there will not be enough time to evolve, for them, time is running out and there is too much to do. You don't have to be on the street to fall into that category - there are many here who simply do not have information about the truth. Plenty of Christians who while possessing faith, lack so much else in the way of refinement and certainly do not trust, because cannot conceive of, the accessible even if inaccessible, truths that so support life, and prayer. Remembering the Episcopal Church as I knew it, prayer was.... not common even though we had the beautiful Book of Common Prayer.

Outlook was material, not spiritual. That one thing enormously influenced my state of ongoing 'angst.' Though, I didn't see it for what it was until later and several lifetimes of adventures.

Nandarani · « **Reply #18 on:** January 04, 2019, 09:02:31 PM »

Happy New Year everyone. I'm reading a book now by Fr. de Caussade who wrote in the 18th century - Abandonment to Divine Providence, and after the book are included many letters he wrote in the way of spiritual direction to sisters of the Visitation near whom he lived. See if this is the way you live inside; it quite probably is! Not limited to sisters; advantageous for Everybody. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/decaussade/abandonment scroll down and see the formats including audio, online, pdf.

Here is the first letter.

SPIRITUAL COUNSELS OF FR. DE CAUSSADE, see Abandonment to Divine Providence (book by Fr. Caussade)

I.—Conformity to the Will of God.
Written in 1731 to Sister Marie-Thérèse de Voiménil, in the 9th year of her profession, and the 28th of her age. For the attainment of perfect conformity to the will of God. [...is the first of many letters to Visitation Sisters and the only one I have read so far; it so impressed me. He became the spiritual director to several when he lived near them. Fr. Caussade gradually went blind and used his understanding to help him deal with this one may be sure.]

1st. At the beginning of each day, and of meditation, Mass, and Communion, declare to God that you desire to belong to Him entirely, and that you will devote yourself wholly to acquiring the spirit of prayer and of the interior life.
2nd. Make it your chief study to conform yourself to the will of God even in the smallest things, saying in the midst of the most annoying contradictions and with the most alarming prospects for the future: “My God, I desire with all my heart to do Your holy will, I submit in all things and absolutely to Your good pleasure for time and eternity; and I wish to do this, Oh my God, for two reasons; first: because You are my Sovereign Lord and it is but just that Your will should be accomplished; secondly: because I am convinced by faith, and by experience that Your will is in all things as good and beneficent as it is just and adorable, while my own desires are always blind and corrupt; blind, because I know not what I ought to desire or to avoid; corrupt, because I nearly always long for what would do me harm. Therefore, from henceforth, I renounce my own will to follow Yours in all things; dispose of me, Oh my God, according to Your good will and pleasure.”
3rd. This continual practice of submission will preserve that interior peace which is the foundation of the spiritual life, and will prevent you from worrying about your faults and failings. You will put up with them instead, with a humble and quiet submission which is more likely to cure them than an uneasy distress, only calculated to weaken and discourage you.
4th. Think no more about the past but only of the present and future. Do not trouble about your confessions, but accuse yourself simply of those faults you can remember after seven or eight minutes examen. It is a good thing to add to the accusation a more serious sin of your past life. This will cause you to make a more fervent act of contrition and dispose you to receive more abundantly the grace of the Sacrament. You should not make too many efforts to get rid of the obstacles which make frequent confession disagreeable to you.
5th. To escape the distress caused by regret for the past or fear about the future, this is the rule to follow: leave the past to the infinite mercy of God, the future to His good Providence, give the present wholly to His love by being faithful to His grace.
6th. When God in His goodness sends you some disappointment, one of those trials that used to annoy you so much; before all thank Him for it as for a great favour all the more useful for the great work of your perfection in that it completely overturns the work of the moment.
7th. Try, in spite of interior dislike, to show a kind face to troublesome people, or to those who come to chatter about their troubles; leave at once prayer, reading, choir office, in fact anything, to go where Providence calls you; and do what is asked of you quietly, peacefully, without hurry, and without vexation.
8th. Should you fail in any of these points, make immediately an act of interior humility—not that sort of humility full of uneasiness and irritation against which St. Francis of Sales said so much, but a humility that is gentle, peaceful, and sweet. This is a matter essential for overcoming your self-will, and to prevent you becoming a slave to your exterior or interior devotion.
9th. We must understand that we can never acquire true conformity to the will of God until we are perfectly resolved to serve Him according to His will and pleasure and not to please ourselves. In everything look to God, and you will find Him everywhere, but more especially where you have most completely renounced yourself. When you are thoroughly convinced that of yourself you are incapable of doing any good, you will give up making resolutions but will humbly confess to God: “My God, I acknowledge after many trials that all my resolutions are useless. Doubtless I have hitherto depended too much on myself, but You have abased me. You alone can do all things; make me then, do such and such a thing, and give me, when necessary, the recollection, energy and strength of will that I require. Without this, I know from my former sad experiences, I shall never do anything.”
10th. To this humble prayer add the practice of begging pardon at once or as soon as possible of all those who witnessed any of your little impetuosities or outbursts of temper. It is most important for you to practise these counsels for two reasons: first, because God desires to do everything in you Himself; secondly, on account of a secret presumption, which, even in the midst of so many miseries, prevents you referring everything to God, until you have experienced a thousand times how absolutely incapable you are of performing any good. When you become thoroughly convinced of this truth you will exclaim almost without reflexion, when you act rightly, “Oh my God it is You who do this in me by your grace.” And when You do wrong: “This is just like me! I see myself as I am.” Then will God be glorified in all your actions, because He will be proved to be the sole author of all that is good. This is your path; all the misery and humiliation you must take on yourself, and render to God the glory and thanks that are His due. All the glory to Him, but all the profit to you. You would be very foolish not to accept with gratitude a share so just and so advantageous.

Author Topic: Silence! Mental, Vocal Prayer, etc. (Read 2486 times)

Nandarani

Re: Silence! Mental, Vocal Prayer, etc.

Nandarani

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Nandarani

Re: Silence! Mental, Vocal Prayer, etc.

Nandarani

Re: Silence! Mental, Vocal Prayer, etc.