Beyond The Noise.

For the greatest things are accomplished in silence. Welcome to the blessed quiet.

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“Everybody remains secretly absurd and alone. Only no one dares face the fact. Yet facing this fact is the absolutely essential requirement for beginning to live freely.”

— Thomas Merton

[outward-signs]

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Sacred Heart, 1905 by George Desvallieres

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O my God, Trinity whom I adore, let me entirely forget myself that I may abide in you, still and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity; let nothing disturb my peace nor separate me from you, o my unchanging God, but that each moment may take me further into the depths of your mystery! Pacify my soul! Make it your heaven, your beloved home, and the place of your repose; let me never leave you there alone, but may I be ever attentive, ever alert in my faith, ever adoring and all given up to your creative action.

O my beloved Christ, crucified for love, would that I might be for you a spouse of your heart! I would anoint you with glory, I would love you - even unto death! Yet I sense my frailty and ask you to adorn me with yourself; identify my soul with all the movements of your soul, submerge me, overwhelm me, substitute yourself in me that my life may become but a reflection of your life. Come into me as Adorer, Redeemer, and Saviour.

O Eternal Word, Word of my God, would that I might spend my life listening to you, would that I might be fully receptive to learn all from you; in all darkness, all loneliness, all weakness, may I ever keep my eyes fixed on you and abide under your great light; O my Beloved Star, fascinate me so that I may never be able to leave your radiance.

O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, descend into my soul and make all in me as an incarnation of the Word, that I may be to him a super-added humanity wherein he renews his mystery; and you, O Father, bestow yourself and bend down to your little creature, seeing in her only your beloved Son in whom you are well pleased.

O my Three', my All, my Beatitude, infinite Solitude, Immensity in whom I lose myself, I give myself to you as a prey to be consumed; enclose yourself in me that I may be absorbed in you so as to contemplate in your light the abyss of your Splendour!

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

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To those in Jerusalem, Jesus remained silent. When the tempest of your indignation flares up, say again with a peaceful sweetness: "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost." Bury yourself in the deep abyss of the love, the glory, the joy of the divine Persons; refuse yourself every gaze toward yourself. Nothing troubles the radiant and impassible felicity of the Blessed Trinity. The opinion of men has neither value, nor interest: you are what God sees. Is this not an unspeakable joy that He will be the only one to enjoy what is the purest and the most beautiful in yourself? O my brother, may you understand and taste the sweetness to be known by God alone! Be happy to radiate Christ, but not trouble yourself because this radiating light is still too faint. Are you not tired enough of conversing with men that you dialogue again with them, now in your soul (or imagination), to bring them to your reasoning? Be alone with God alone!

He knows all. He can do all. He loves you.

A Carthusian, "The Doors of Silence"

[eternal-echoes]

"One important challenge is to show that the solution will never be found in fleeing from a personal and committed relationship with God which at the same time commits us to serving others. This happens frequently nowadays, as believers seek to hide or keep apart from others, or quietly flit from one place to another or from one task to another, without creating deep and stable bonds. “Imaginatio locorum et mutatio multos fefellit”.[68] This is a false remedy which cripples the heart and at times the body as well. We need to help others to realize that the only way is to learn how to encounter others with the right attitude, which is to accept and esteem them as companions along the way, without interior resistance. Better yet, it means learning to find Jesus in the faces of others, in their voices, in their pleas. And learning to suffer in the embrace of the crucified Jesus whenever we are unjustly attacked or meet with ingratitude, never tiring of our decision to live in fraternity.[69]"

-Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium

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The weather shifts from cloudy to clear and then back to rain; thus it is with human nature. One must always expect clouds to hide the sun sometimes. Even the saints have had their dark hours, days and weeks. They say then that “God has left them” in order that they may know truly how utterly wretched they are of themselves, without His support. These times of darkness, when all seems meaningless, ridiculous and vain, when one is beset by doubt and temptations, are inevitable. But even these times can be harvested for good.
The dark days can best be conquered by following the example of St. Mary of Egypt. For forty-eight years she dwelt in the desert beyond Jordan, and when temptations befell her and memories of her former sinful life in Alexandria beckoned her to leave her voluntary sojourn in the desert, she lay on the ground, cried to God for help and did not get up until her heart was humbled. The first years were hard; she sometimes had to lie this way for many days; but after seventeen years came the time of rest.

On such days stay quiet. Do not be persuaded to go out into social life or entertainment. Do not pity yourself, seek comfort in nothing but your cry to the Lord: “Haste thee, O God, to deliver me! Makes haste to help me, O Lord (Psalm 70:1)! I am so fast in prison that I cannot get forth (Psalm 88:8),” and other such appeals. You cannot expect real help from any other source. For the sake of chance relief do not throw away all your winnings. Pull the covers over your head; now your patience and steadfastness are being tried. If you endure the trial, thank God who gave you the strength. If you do not, rise up promptly, pray for mercy and think: I got what I deserved! For the fall itself was your punishment. You had relied too much on yourself, and now you see what it led to. You have had an experience; do not forget to give thanks.

“Way of the Ascetics,” by Tito Colliander, San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1982, pp. 84-85

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“I hear You saying to me: “I will give you what you desire. I will lead you into solitude. I will lead you by the way that you cannot possibly understand, because I want it to be the quickest way. “Therefore all the things around you will be armed against you, to deny you, to hurt you, to give you pain, and therefore to reduce you to solitude. “Because of their enmity, you will soon be left alone. They will cast you out and forsake you and reject you and you will be alone. “Everything that touches you shall burn you, and you will draw your hand away in pain, until you have withdrawn yourself from all things. Then you will be all alone. “Everything that can be desired will sear you, and brand you with a cautery, and you will fly from it in pain, to be alone. Every created joy will only come to you as pain, and you will die to all joy and be left alone. All the good things that other people love and desire and seek will come to you, but only as murderers to cut you off from the world and its occupations. "You will be praised, and it will be like burning at the stake. You will be loved, and it will murder your heart and drive you into the desert. "You will have gifts, and they will break you with their burden. You will have pleasures of prayer, and they will sicken you and you will fly from them. "And when you have been praised a little and loved a little I will take away all your gifts and all your love and all your praise and you will be utterly forgotten and abandoned and you will be nothing, a dead thing, a rejection. And in that day you shall being to possess the solitude you have so long desired. And your solitude will bear immense fruit in the souls of men you will never see on earth. "Do not ask when it will be or where it will be or how it will be: On a mountain or in a prison, in a desert or in a concentration camp or in a hospital or at Gethsemani. It does not matter. So do not ask me, because I am not going to tell you. You will not know until you are in it. "But you shall taste the true solitude of my anguish and my poverty and I shall lead you into the high places of my joy and you shall die in Me and find all things in My mercy which has created you for this end and brought you from Prades to Bermuda to St. Antonin to Oakham to London to Cambridge to Rome to New York to Columbia to Corpus Christi to St. Bonaventure to the Cistercian Abbey of the poor men who labor in Gethsemani: "That you may become the brother of God and learn to know the Christ of the burnt men.”

Thomas Merton

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“Ask the Holy Spirit to begin to work in you from the inside out, to make you the man or woman God designed you to be. Ask God to help you know His will and give you the strength to do it. Spend some time thinking about the fact that God loves you. Contemplate that all Jesus did, He did for you, as an expression of that love. Reflect on the fact that God has a plan for your life that He wants to reveal to you. It will be the best life you could ever live. Tell Him you want to do what He wants you to do. Embrace grace. It is a gift for you.”

— William Wilberforce, Real Christianity (via grace-after-the-fall)

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Power is:

The fruit of perfection?

The culmination of influence?

The purity of self-determination?

Yeah…...no.

Here's what Jesus said to St. Paul in the midst of his struggle:

"[Jesus] said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'" 2 Cor. 12:9

It's a real paradigm shift from what most of us have been formed in.

What Jesus seems to say to St. Paul is: you think your weakness is an obstacle to my power, but in fact, where you are weak my power is perfect.

Could it be that the perfection of weakness is the meeting of our poverty and Jesus' power (and not the meeting of our perfection with his power)? What this would mean is that the first step is not to remedy the weakness, but simply to surrender it to Jesus.

Is Jesus' invitation to reframe your struggle, limits, and poverty not as an obstacle to his power, but rather the key to it?

The Poco a Poco Podcast // CFR

[fear-not-beloved]

Mary, pure and humble Virgin—Daughter, Bride, and Mother, united unceasingly to the Holy Trinity—I entrust myself entirely to you, in trust, gratitude, and simplicity. May I be a little child before you always—in your presence, in your arms, sheltered by your mantle and your love. Just as Jesus himself lived in your presence, both Son of Mary and Son of God, so may I also abide, Mary, at every moment, in the truth of childhood, cradled, close to you, in the arms of God’s perfect Love. I ask you to help me to gaze ever more deeply into the tender and loving gaze of God, who ceaselessly looks upon me and cries out: “You are my beloved, child, in whom I delight!” Yes, and through the radiance of this communication, may he live in me, and I in him. Dear Mary, form Jesus in me completely, just as he was formed in your heart and in your womb. And may I, in turn, let myself be ever more deeply and intimately cradled in his embrace. Bring to full flowering in me, healing all that hinders it, the fullness of his own mystery, and my own unique mystery in him, beautiful before the Father and before every person…this mystery that is already alive within my heart through God’s gift. Yes, grant me, through your motherly care, to rejoice to be a little, infinitely loved child of God. And with you, may this childhood blossom in the beauty of nuptial intimacy with Christ and of ever-deepening communion with my brothers and sisters. Finally, my Mother, grant me to radiate, in humble and joyful transparency, with the Father’s own healing paternal light. Fashion in me Jesus’ own perfect humility, his filial intimacy with the Father, his own tender and reverent compassion for every person. And may you do this, Mary, by conforming me to your own virginal love, your own perfect acceptance and surrender of self, your own docility to the Spirit’s slightest touch. It is thus that I will share, as you do, in the beauty of the love of God, bound together inseparably to the mystery of Christ who is the perfect Image of Divine Beauty. Grant me to abide, dearest Mother, entirely within the enfolding arms of God, and thus to be, and to rejoice to be, one of the littlest and the least, utterly poor, utterly obedient, utterly chaste. In this littleness, allow the gratuitous gift of God, passing through your virginal and maternal heart, to also pass into me, and through me into the hearts of others. Touching all of us together, uniting us in the bosom of the holy Church, one Body and Bride of the Son, let this Love at last draw us into the inmost heart of Jesus’ loving embrace, there to abide forever, with him, upon the Father’s breast—in the intimacy and joy in which all things are made new, in the bliss of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who live and reign forever and ever. Amen.

Prayer of Entrustment to Mary || Joshua Elzner

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Where do you perceive God's presence most powerfully in your life right now? Is it within a relationship, a form of prayer, or a part of your daily life that feels especially filled with His presence?

Wherever that place may be, go there intentionally and quietly. Listen deeply for Him.

Once we discover the presence of God, we must approach this place-with reverence. It is there that we encounter not merely another activity or person, but a revelation of God offered to us in a deeper and more profound way.

Hence, attention to the presence of God is the essence of the spiritual life, because without this awareness, we remain confined to a purely natural life.

Fr. Jeremiah Myriam Shryock CFR

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Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.

Spes Salvi, 47

[perfectfeelings]

“The roots of loneliness are very deep … They find their food in the suspicion that there is no-one who cares and offers love without conditions.”

— Henri Nouwen

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“And this abyss of interior solitude is a hunger that will never be satisfied with any created thing.”

— Thomas Merton

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“Our deepest hungers are not for food and drink, not for amusements and recreations, not for property and wardrobes, not for notoriety and gossip. We hunger for truth, we thirst to drink beauty, we yearn to celebrate, we stretch out to love and be loved. This is why anything less than everything is not enough.”

— Fr. Thomas Dubay