Nov 4th class notes

Nov 4th Power Point notes for Spiritual Life Class


“God Speaks to the Soul
and God said to the soul:
I desired you before the world began.
I desire you now
As you desire me.
And where the desires of two come together
There love is perfected.”
- Mechthild of Magdeburg
- Translated by Oliver Davies


We must offer ourselves to God like a clean, smooth canvas and not worry ourselves about what God may choose to paint on it, but at each moment, feel only the stroke of His brush.
— Jean Pierre de Caussade quoted in The Inner Treasure by Jonathan Star

There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.
— Rumer Godden in A House with Four Rooms

GOD of surprises,
as we walk through the day,
keep our eyes open
and our senses tuned
to your presence
in unexpected places.
Amen.
- Beth A. Richardson
Child of the Light
From page 87 of Child of the Light: Walking through Advent and Christmas

“The mystery of God touches us -- or does not -- in the smallest details: giving a strawberry, with love; receiving a touch, with love; sharing the snapdragon red of an autumn sunset, with love. “
- Marion Woodman, "Coming Home to Myself "

Faith is like trusting in a deep ocean…if you struggle, if you tense up, if you trash about, you will eventually sink. But if you relax and trust, you float… Faith…is trusting in the buoyancy of God. Faith is trusting in the sea of being in which we live, and move, and have our being
Marcus Borg quoted on 126 of Habits

To have faith is not only to raise one’s eyes to God…; it is also to look at this world but with Christ's eyes…We must pray to have sufficient faith to know how to look at life.
Michel Quoist 128

Our whole business in this life is to restore health to the eyes of the heart, whereby God may be seen.
St Augustine

"God wishes to be seen, and wishes to be sought, and wishes to be expected, and wishes to be trusted."
Julian of Norwich .p 131 of Habits

"I can't point to any one time in the last dozen years I ‘got’ faith. There were- and are- many moments, nudges, and jolts that incubated my faith and helped it grow."

Kathleen Norris p134 Habits

Nothing more tedious than practicing your scales or mumbling your beads. Yet the accomplishments of art, the efficacy of prayer, the beauty of ritual, and the force of character depend on petty repetitions any instant of which, taken for itself alone, seems utterly useless.
— James Hillman in The Force of Character and the Lasting Life

…writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way…
…. so also with faith.
adapted from pg 134 in Habits

MY LORD GOD,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude