How to Hear God Speaking to You

The following comes from Fr. Healy at the Catholic Exchange:

Many people never listen to God because they are not aware that He speaks to them. Yet, God does speak. One way to live in His presence is to acquire the habit of recognizing His voice when He speaks. If we do not know that God wishes to communicate with us, or the ways He has chosen, then our passage through life will be devoid of the most perfect of guides.

When does God speak to us? He speaks at all times, especially in prayer. Prayer is a conversation with God. But it is not a monologue. When we pray, then, we should also listen, because a good conversationalist is also a good listener. We do not pray well when we recite ready-made formulas quickly and distractedly. We act as if God has only to listen to us, and that we have no need to listen to the thoughts and desires that He wishes to communicate to us. He has promised, “If thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and do what is right before Him, and obey His commandments, and keep all His precepts, none of the evils that I laid upon Egypt will I bring upon thee.”

Unfortunately, many of us have never trained ourselves to listen to His voice. But, if we are to know God’s will, we must listen to Him and obey Him when we recognize His commandments.

But how does God speak to us? God is a pure spirit. Unlike man, He has no voice. If He wishes to speak to us, He must use some means outside of Himself, adapted to our nature, by which He can communicate ideas. He may use things we can see and hear in order to stir our imagination, or He may enter directly into our thoughts.

God speaks to you personally

Does God, then, speak to man? How can we ever doubt it? How foolish it is to read all types of books and neglect the word of God! The Scriptures were not meant only for particular groups of people; they were meant for all men at all times. God is eternal; His words are eternal. Although He speaks to all men, He speaks to us personally.

This does not mean that every person should take the Bible and interpret it according to his own fancy. No, the Church alone is the divinely appointed authority to guide us in the correct interpretation  of the Bible. The Church encourages us to read it, because she knows that the word of God can enter into our minds and that God, in His own mysterious way, can teach the true way of life, the way of love and intimate union with Him.

St. Ignatius of Loyola felt that God was speaking directly to him, when, on his sick bed, he read the words:

“For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?”

But, we ask, is this prayer? It is at least the beginning of prayer. We listen to these words of Christ; we ponder over them; they awaken thoughts and desires within us. We begin to believe, to hope, to love. Our will becomes inspired, and we break forth in ardent affections, calling on Christ to help us, begging forgiveness, expressing gratitude, performing little acts of adoration — and surely this is prayer.

We often read of visions, apparitions, and revelations in which God spoke to the saints. St. Paul on the road to Damascus is a classic example. And we read in the life of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque that, while she was engaged in prayer, Jesus often spoke to her of the devotion to His Sacred Heart.

Such conversations with God are not rare in the lives of the canonized. But must we in our conversation with God await the appearance of Jesus, of some heavenly voice or extraordinary apparition, some heavenly manifestation from God? Absolutely not. It is true that God does single out some chosen souls to whom He speaks directly and who actually experience the divine power working in them, but these are very few; it is not the way that God ordinarily uses. We should not even desire that God speak to us in this extraordinary manner. We should not expect it. Visions and revelations are not necessary for us to grow in deep love for God. We may fall deeply in love with Him and practice faithfully the presence of God, yet never receive any extraordinary manifestations from Him. These are special gifts, and God gives them to whom He wills, and when He wills.

God speaks to your mind and to your heart

Nevertheless, God does speak to all of us without exception in a more direct way than we have yet mentioned. It is a hidden way, by which He enters directly into our thoughts and desires. Our most hidden secrets are not secrets to Him. He comes right into our mind. Our thoughts are not only our thoughts; our desires are not only our desires — they may also be God’s thoughts and desires. We know we can do nothing without God. Even such ordinary things as eating, breathing, and walking cannot be done without the ordinary help that God gives us. But, in this instance, we are presupposing this natural help of God and are referring to a greater and more noble assistance from Him.

Does God help us in a special way to think good thoughts and to desire holy things? He most assuredly does. For we are living in a supernatural order and destined to a supernatural end, the Beatific Vision. To attain this end, God not only gives us the principle of supernatural life, sanctifying grace, but He also gives us actual graces that help us to perform supernatural actions and thus to grow in the grace of God. These actual graces are, especially, the holy thoughts and desires that God creates in us.

God does not have to use external words and signs to attract our attention  and convey ideas to us. He enters our minds directly. He speaks secretly, noiselessly, as befits the Divinity. It is only by faith that we know He is working in us. For example, God once spoke in a special, hidden way to St. Peter, who then confessed Jesus to be the Son of God. “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona,” said our Lord. “For flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee, but my Father in Heaven.”

St. John tells us that we will know all things from the Holy Spirit: “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.”St. Paul says that God enters our very thoughts: “Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.”

God also enters our hearts and inspires us to holy desires. “And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God, was listening; and the Lord touched her heart to give heed to what was being said by Paul.”

Thus, the Scriptures and the Church tell us that God speaks to us in the silence of our minds and hearts. He speaks to all men, but all men do not hear Him. God speaks to our mind and heart when we kneel to meditate or to adore Him in the Blessed Sacrament. He enters our mind when the passing things of time excite our thoughts. It is He who gives us holy thoughts to conquer our temptations. It is He who stirs up within us the desire to persevere against all adversaries.

Perhaps we have never realized that God is illuminating our intellect and inspiring our will. Yet He does just that. That is why we are told not to do all the talking in prayer. For, if we continually recite vocal prayers without pausing now and then to think, we will stifle the thoughts and desires that God wishes to excite in us.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux tells us how she listened to the voice of God. “I know and have experienced that ‘the Kingdom of God is within us,’ that our Master has no need of books or teacher to instruct a soul. The Teacher of teachers instructs without sound of words, and though I have never heard Him speak, yet I know He is within me, always guiding and inspiring me; and just when I need them, lights, hitherto unseen, break in upon me. As a rule, it is not during prayer that this happens, but in the midst of my daily duties.”

But we are not only to listen; it would be folly to remain in a state of mental blankness, waiting for God to speak. No, prayer is a loving conversation, and, when the Holy Spirit moves us, it is time to begin our part of the colloquy.

One way, then, to practice the exercise of the presence of God is to listen to God, to be aware that He speaks to us, to be ever conscious that God can use all things to communicate with us.

The was excreted from Fr. Healy’s Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of God, which is now available from Sophia Institute Press. 

Unwrap the Gift of Silence

The following comes from The Anchoress:

The silence of which we sing so wistfully at Midnight Mass, is at an all-time premium at Christmas; it is so difficult to find a silent night, let alone sit within one and become immersed in it, that the possibility of a seasonal soothing of the heart—a quieting of the grief of the world—seems the stuff of illusion and myth.

Christmas has, in too many ways, become the equivalent of an overdone theme-park vacation. By its end, one is knock-kneed with exhaustion and desperately in need of a genuine opportunity to rest.

A Christmas snow, like the one we’ve just had, does wonders to cull the silence. A few inches of white powder brings an unusual and welcome softening of sound—in cities, the hum of traffic is muffled; in the suburbs even the broom of the ubiquitous snowblower is reduced to a faint and unobtrusive whir, one that remains mostly beneath the surface of one’s awareness.

In such a silence, if you have turned off the television and tempted your child away from his games with a good book, you can hear other things: the chatter and call of cardinals who have found the birdseed; the crack of a log in the fire; hot coffee being poured into a cup; the ticking of your last non-digital clock; the rhythmic breathing of tired child (or parent) who has dozed while reading; the soft thud of a book sliding to the floor.

You can hear life, forced into a slow-down; life less deliberate; life lived as it was for centuries, before the busy inventiveness of the last five decades: life acquiescent to uncontrollable nature, and hunkered-down.

We have allowed silence to become a gift forgotten, one we only consent to unwrap when all of our alternative bows and strings have been unraveled, and our diversions have been utterly played out. Our inability to be silent puts our minds and our souls at a disadvantage, because it robs us of the ability to wonder, and if we are not wondering at the impossible perfection of the world in its creation—if we are not wondering at spinning atoms and Incarnations—then we are lost to humility, and to experiencing gratitude.

And, without gratitude, we cannot develop a reasoned capacity for joy.

One of the most attractive things about G.K. Chesterton was the unending sense of surprised delight he had for all creation, the world and everything in it. He found newspaper ink to be as wonderful as beach glass, which—it went without saying—was as marvelous to him as any good cigar. He was as awe-struck and grateful for the world as a teenager in love, and he wondered about the unconditional gift of days that God had given him. He asked with astonishment, “Why am I allowed two?”—a great question in an age where we expect unending, medically-engineered days.

Chesterton was joyful, because he was grateful; he was grateful because even within his busy life, he was allowed the leisure of silence, with which gift, he was able to wonder. And, as St. Gregory of Nyssa is credited with saying, “only wonder leads to knowing.”

If we cannot wonder, how can we presume to know the Timeless and Eternal God? Without wonder, how may we know ourselves? How do we remember that time is a construct to which we must not become enslaved?

By what means shall we know that, when we are so deeply immersed in the seasonal pronouncements of Madison Avenue, where Christmas begins (at the latest) in early November and ends on December 26, whence commences Valentine’s Day? In all times and seasons the media-message is a weirdly incongruous (and John Lennonesque) amalgam of “be here now” and “serve yourself.”

Read the rest here.

Silence: A necessary condition for deep, contemplative prayer

The following comes from The Catholic World Report:

Many Catholics rightly complain about the absence of silence in some forms of the celebration of our Roman liturgy. It seemed to us important, therefore, in this short essay, to recall the meaning of silence as a Christian ascetical value, and therefore as a necessary condition for deep, contemplative prayer, without forgetting the fact that times of silence are officially prescribed during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, so as to highlight the importance of silence for a high-quality liturgical renewal.

1. Silence as a Christian ascetical value

In the negative sense, silence is the absence of noise. It can be exterior or interior. Exterior silence involves the absence of sounds both in words and in actions (noises of doors, vehicles, jackhammers, and airplanes, the noisy mechanism of cameras, often accompanied by dazzling flashes, and also of that horrible forest of cell phones that are brandished at arm’s length during our Eucharistic liturgies). Virtuous or mystical silence obviously must be distinguished from reproachful silence, from the refusal to speak to someone, from the silence of omission through cowardice, egotism, or hard-heartedness.

Of course, exterior silence is an ascetical exercise of self-mastery in the use of speech. First of all it may be helpful to recall what asceticism is; this word is not praised to the skies by our consumer society—far from it!—and, we must admit, it frightens our contemporaries, including very often the Christians who are influenced by the spirit of the world. Well, then, what is asceticism? Asceticism is an indispensable means that helps us to remove from our life anything that weighs it down, in other words, anything that hampers our spiritual or interior life and therefore is an obstacle to prayer. Yes, it is indeed in prayer that God communicates his Life to us, in other words, manifests his presence in our soul by irrigating it with the streams of his Trinitarian Love: the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. And prayer is essentially silence. Chattering, the tendency to externalize all the treasures of the soul by expressing them, is supremely harmful to the spiritual life. Carried away toward the exterior by his need to say everything, the chatterer cannot help being far from God, superficial and incapable of any profound activity.

The wisdom books of the Old Testament (Prov 10:8, 11, 13, 14, 18-21, 31, 32; 15:1-7; Sir 19:7-12; 20:1-2, 5-8 or 23:7-15; 28:13-26) are chock-full of exhortations aimed at avoiding sins of the tongue (in particular, slander and calumny). The prophetic books, for their part, mention silence as the expression of reverential fear of God; it is then a preparation for the theophany of God, in other words, the revelation of His presence in our world (Lam 3:26; Zeph 1:7; Hab 2:20; Is 41:1; Zech 2:13). The New Testament is not outdone in this respect. Indeed, there is the Letter of James, which clearly remains the classic passage about controlling the tongue (Jas 3:1-10). However, we know that Jesus himself warned us against wicked words, which are the expression of a depraved heart (Mt 15:19) and even against idle words, for which an accounting will be demanded of us (Mt 12:36). In contrast, we can only be impressed by the silence of Jesus before the Sanhedrin, the Roman governor Pilate and King Herod: Jesus autem tacebat (Mt 26:63). Herod asked him to work a miracle for him personally, and his courtiers would have been amused by it. But Jesus Christ, who was in chains—he, the God of majesty—did not consent to become the buffoon of King Herod, nor to do for that proud man whose curiosity was unhealthy what he granted so generously to the humble and the uneducated.

In reality, true, good silence always belongs to someone who is willing to let others have his place, and especially the Completely-Other, God. In contrast, external noise characterizes the individual who wants to occupy an over-important place, to strut or to show off, or else who wants to fill his interior emptiness, as is the case in many stores and public facilities, and also particularly in the waiting rooms of some dentists, hairdressers..., where they impose incessant background music on you.

As for interior silence, it can achieved by the absence of memories, plans, interior speech, worries…. Still more important, thanks to an act of the will, it can result from the absence of disordered affections or excessive desires. The Fathers of the Church assign an eminent place to silence in the ascetical life. Think of Saint Ambrose (In psalm. 37, 12-15), Saint Augustine, Saint Gregory the Great (Moralia II, 48; XXII, 16; XXX, 16), not to mention Chapter VI of the Rule of Saint Benedict of Nursia on “taciturnity,” or Chapter 62 on grand silence at night, where he adopts the teaching of Cassian. Starting with those spiritual masters, all the medieval founders of religious orders, followed by the mystics of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, insisted not only on the ascetical but also on the mystical importance of silence.

2. Silence as a condition for contemplative prayer

The Gospels say that the Savior himself prayed in silence, particularly at night (Lk 6:12), or while withdrawing to deserted places (Lk 5:16; Mk 1:35). Silence is typical of the meditation by the Word of God; we find it again particularly in Mary’s attitude toward the mystery of her Son (Lk 2:19, 51). The most silent person in the Gospels is of course Saint Joseph; not a single word of his does the New Testament record for us. Saint Basil considers silence not only as an ascetical necessity of monastic life, but also as a condition for encountering God (Letter 2, 2-6: PG 32, 224-232). Silence precedes and prepares for the privileged moment when we have access to God, who then can speak to us face to face as we would do with a friend (cf. Ex 33:11; Num 12:8; Deut 34:10).

Recall, in this regard, that we arrive at the knowledge of God by way of causality, analogy, eminence, but also negation: once we affirm the divine attributes, which are known by natural reason (this is the kataphatic way), we must deny the mode of limited realization thereof that we know here below (this is the apophatic way). Silence is an essential part of the apophatic way of gaining access to God, which was so highly prized by the Fathers of the Church, especially the Greeks; this makes them demand silence of arguments when faced with the mystery of God (Clement of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa).

It is nonetheless true that silence is above all the positive attitude of someone who prepares to welcome God by listening. Yes, God acts in the silence. Hence this very important remark by the great Saint John of the Cross: “The Father said only one word, namely his Son, and in an eternal silence he always says it: the soul too must hear it in silence.”[1] The Book of Wisdom had already noted in this regard the manner in which God intervened to deliver the chosen people from captivity in Egypt: that unforgettable act took place during the night: “For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne” (Wis 18:14). Later, this verse would be understood by Christian liturgical tradition as a prefiguration of the silent Incarnation of the Eternal Word in the crib in Bethlehem. As for Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, she would insist on silence as a condition for contemplating God the Holy Trinity.

And so we have to make silence: this is of course an activity, and not a form of idleness. If our “interior cell phone” is always busy because we are “having a conversation” with other creatures, how can the Creator reach us, how can he “call us”? We must therefore purify our mind of its curiosities, the will of its plans, in order to open ourselves totally to the graces of light and strength that God wants to give us profusely: “Father, not my will, but yours be done.” Ignatian “indifference” is therefore a form of silence too.

Read the rest here.

Ten Ways to Fall in Love with the Eucharist

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

The saints are the mad-lovers of Jesus; they were on earth and now are in heaven loving God for all eternity.  In this article, we will give a list of what some saints have said in an excess of love for the most Holy Eucharist. Then we will give ten keys to unlock the treasure-case of gems to love the Eucharist more in our lives! Let us read and meditate on the fire of the saints and the Eucharist:

•  “Holy Communion is the shortest and the safest way to Heaven.” (St. Pius X)

•  “If the angels could be jealous of men, they would be for one reason: Holy Communion.” (St. Maximilian Kolbe)

•  “In one day the Eucharist will make you produce more for the glory of God than a whole lifetime without it.” (St. Peter Julian Eymard)

•  “How I love the feasts!… I especially loved the processions in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. What a joy it was for me to throw flowers beneath the feet of God!… I was never so happy as when I saw my roses touch the sacred Monstrance.” (St. Therese the Little Flower)

•  “When you look at the Crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.” (Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta)

•  “From the Eucharist comes strength to live the Christian life and zeal to share that life with others.”  (St. John Paul II)

•  “This is the bread of everlasting life which supports the substance of your soul.” (St. Ambrose)

•  “The longer you stay away from Communion, the more your soul will be weak, and in the end you will become dangerously indifferent.”  (St. John Bosco)

•  “The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.” (St. Thomas Aquinas)

Now let us dive into ten golden keys that can open up the infinite treasure house of jewels so as to derive countless graces and blessings from Jesus’ greatest Gift to the entire world: Holy Mass and Holy Communion, His Body, Blood Soul and Divinity!

Faith.  Beg the Lord for a greater faith in the sublime mystery of the most Holy Eucharist.   Let us say with the Apostles Saint Thomas:  “My Lord and my God.” Let us also so the prayer of the man of the Gospel: “Lord I believe but strengthen my faith!”

Visit. Make it a habit to visit the most Blessed Sacrament as often as is possible.  Hopefully when we die Jesus will not reproach us with these words: “Whenever I see a church I stop to make a visit so that when I die the Lord will not say:  “Who is it!”  Friends meet to chat, talk, and enjoy each other’s company; so should we, in visiting and talking frequently to Jesus.

Spiritual Communion. Highly recommended by St. Alphonsus Liguouri as well as Pope Benedict XVI in his document “Sacramentum Caritatis” is the frequent practice of the Spiritual Communion.   It can be done in a simple manner and as often as your heart desires.   You can say the simple prayer:  “Jesus I believe that you are truly present in the Tabernacle in your Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Now I cannot receive you sacramentally but come at least spiritually into my heart.”  Then enter into your heart and thank, praise and love the Lord who has come spiritually into your soul.  This can fan the flame of love for our Eucharistic Lord.

Read John 6.  The Gospel of John chapter six has three parts: Jesus multiples the loaves, walks on water, and then He gives a sublime discourse related to the Eucharist; actually it is a Eucharistic prophecy.   Best known as the “Bread of life discourse”, Jesus promises to give us the Bread of Life.  Also Jesus points out in no unclear terms that our immortal salvation depends upon our eating His Body and drinking His Blood, which obviously refers to Holy Communion.  Read and meditate this powerful chapter!

Fifteen Minutes. Years ago there was published a small booklet with the title “The fifteen minutes”.  It is a little gem where Jesus encourages the reader to enter into simple but profound conversation with Him. Basically Jesus wants to be our Best Friend and challenges us to open up the secret mysteries of our heart to Him and only He can truly understand the inner secrets, wounds and mysteries in our heart.   Read and pray through this booklet if possible in front of the Blessed Sacrament!

Holy Hour. Get into the habit of making a daily Holy Hour in front of the most Blessed Sacrament. It will transform your life if you persevere in the practice.  The Great Servant of God, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who made his Holy Hour faithfully for more than fifty years, called it THE HOUR OF POWER!

Read the rest here.

Overcoming Loneliness

The following comes from Fr. Ed Broom at Catholic Exchange:

Feeling down in the dumps?  Feeling like nobody really understands nor really cares? Feeling dreary, dark and bewildered and confused?  Feeling as if life does not have any real meaning and purpose?  Feel like just throwing in the towel and saying: I have had enough!

St. Ignatius of Loyola would call this a state of desolation. One of the most common manifestations of desolation is that of loneliness—you feel alone in the world and nobody really seems to care about who you are and where you are heading in your life.

If we do not know how to cope properly with this state of desolation then this state can wreak havoc in our lives and do irreparable damage to our spiritual life and even our natural life. One wrong decision made in a state of desolation could be life-determining. How many young people today have recourse to violence toward others and turn on themselves when swimming in an apparently endless sea of desolation?

This state of desolation—manifested through a deep sense of loneliness—is all pervasive in all societies and situations today now more than ever!  However, we are a people of hope.  “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth!” St. Paul reminds us with these encouraging words: “If God is with us who can be against us…” and “When I am weak then I am strong…” (The strength being of course God).   The Psalm calls God a rock, as well as our light and salvation.

To overcome the state of crushing loneliness that we all experience in some periods of our lives,  let us  have recourse to this simple but efficacious practice that can be carried out anywhere and with minimum effort.

Psalm 23: The Psalm of the Good Shepherd

When the dark clouds rain down their torrential storm upon your lonely and forlorn soul open up your Bible, rewind back to the Old Testament to the most famous of all Psalms, Psalm 23

The Divine Shepherd
A Psalm of David.

¹The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
²He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
³he restores my soul.

He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.

⁴Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.

⁵You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

Silence!   

Find some place of silence so that you can read, pray, meditate, listen and allow God to speak to the depths of your heart. God does indeed speak in the silence of our hearts if we allow Him.

“The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want….”   

Read the rest here.

The Necessary Practice of Interior Silence

The following comes from the Catholic Exchange:

We cannot always be thinking of God, nor is it necessary. We can be constantly united with God without the constant thought of Him. The union of our will with the will of God is the sole form of union that is really requisite.

Wherein, then, lies the utility of the exercise of the presence of God enjoined by all the masters of the spiritual life? We will now explain.

It is necessary to have an absolutely sure intention in all our actions, so that the generous fulfillment of our daily duties may be directed toward the highest supernatural ideal. Thus, our life, apart from moments of prayer, will be a prayerful life.

It is clear that the habit of giving an upward glance to God at the moment of action is a great assistance in aiding us to behave always with a pure intention and in freeing us from our natural impulses and fancies, so, that, retaining our self-mastery, or rather, God becoming the sole Master, all our movements become dependent upon the Holy Spirit.

We see in the Gospel that whenever our Lord was about to undertake some important step, He always paused for a moment to raise His eyes to Heaven, and only after this moment of recollection did He take up the work He had to do. “He lifted up His eyes to Heaven” is a phrase that recurs with significant frequency. And doubtless, when there was no outward sign of this prayer, there was the in­ward offering.

The ideal is the same for us. The constant subjection of self to the guidance of the Holy Spirit is made easier from the fact of His presence in the soul, where He is asked explicitly to preside over all our doings. It is impossible to put the spirit of recollection into generous practice unless there is also a deeply rooted spirit of self-renunciation. We shall not submit wholeheartedly to the invisible Guest unless He is kept in close proximity to us. The death of self cannot take place unless the spirit of life is already installed, unless it moves upon the face of the waters.

Man will not consent to drive away the money-changers from the temple of his soul until he realizes that it is a Holy of Holies — not a house of traffic, but in very truth the house of God.

We thus reach two striking conclusions:

• There cannot be entire dependence upon the Holy Spirit’s guidance, which is the true meaning of living in Christ, without complete self-renunciation.
• There cannot be complete self-renunciation without the constant underlying spirit of faith, without the habit of interior silence, a silence where God is dwelling.

Many do not see the connection between thoughts about the King and the service of the King; between the interior silence, which seems to consist in immobility, and the continual detachment, which is the essence of supreme activity.

If we look closer, it will be seen that there is a strong, close, unbreakable link between the two. Find a recollected person, and he will be detached; seek one who is detached, and he will be recollected. To have found the one is to have discovered the other. The truth of this may be estimated by the ease with which the one or the other of these two types can be found.

Anyone who tries, on a given day, to practice either recollection or detachment cannot ignore the fact that he is doing a double stroke of work.

Read the rest here.

Invasion of the Holy Spirit

The following comes from Fr. Broom's Blog:

The Gift of Gifts, the Paraclete, the Counselor and Consoler, Sweet Guest of the soul, Interior Master, the Finger of God, the Divine Architect, Friend, Sanctifier, Third Person of the Blessed Trinity—all of these are different titles given to the Person of the Holy Spirit.   In an earlier article we explained the power of the Holy Spirit to transform sinners into great saints—as we saw in the Apostles, and especially Simon Peter. Saint John XXIII actually said:  “The saints are the masterpieces of the Holy Spirit.”   A future saint can be you and me!

In this article we would like to point out ten specific ways that we can deepen our knowledge, love, intimacy and union with the Holy Spirit and thereby allow Him to do the work of transforming us from sinners into saints. It can be done if we become docile instruments in the hands of God who is the Holy Spirit!  “Come Holy Spirit, come, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary!”

1.    PRAYER!  Form the habit if praying to the Holy Spirit on a frequent basis! You could pray the traditional prayer to the Holy Spirit:  “Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle within us the fire of your divine love.” If you like the hymn in Latin: “Veni Creator”; or the Sequence prayed on Pentecost “Veni, Sancte Spiritus.”  Or you might sing the classical hymn to the Holy Spirit, “Come Holy Ghost.”   Or it might appeal to you to pray the Litany of the Holy Spirit. Never forget, you can pray and talk to the Holy Spirit using your own words, simply speak to Him from your heart.

2.    ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.  Read the book from the Bible, “The Acts of the Apostles”. Written by the Evangelist Saint Luke, this book clearly shows the powerful working of the Holy Spirit in the Apostles—especially Saint Peter and St. Paul—as well as the formation of the primitive church. As you read be keenly attentive to the presence and workings of the Holy Spirit and beg Him to work powerfully in your own personal life! “Come Holy Spirit come….”

3.      GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.   Get to know the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. You received the Gifts of the Holy Spirit the day of your Baptism. These Gifts were fortified the day of your Confirmation. However, these Gifts must be used and exercised. This saying is true: “If you do not use it you lose it!”  If these Gifts are not used then they become rusty, dormant, and inactive. Memorize them and study them. Here they are:  Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord.  These gifts, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, perfect our intellect and our will—so that we can know God more clearly and love Him more ardently.

4.    SILENCE.   We must cultivate zones of silence in our daily lives, even though many of us have to combine the Martha and Mary (The Active and the Contemplative) in a harmonious balance. Still the danger is to launch ourselves into a frenetic activism whereby there is little time for prayer and much less for silence.   The Holy Spirit speaks to a heart that is ready to listen in silence. With Samuel in the temple we should pray: “Speak O Lord for your servant is listening.”

5.    DOCILITY.    Silence is a prerequisite to move on to the next step—docility to the Holy Spirit.  A person who is living in the state of grace, honestly pursuing a life of holiness and seeking perfection will be exposed to heavenly inspirations that come from the Holy Spirit. The key is an ability to listen to these gentle but insistent inspirations, discern them coming from God and then the most difficult is to follow and obey these inspirations!  The Holy Spirit is so to speak a “Gentleman” and will never force Himself upon anybody. Rather, He waits patiently for us to respond and then He can work very powerfully only if we are silent, humble and obedient!

6.    SPIRITUAL READING.  Highly to be recommended, with respect to learning to be docile to the Holy Spirit, is the reading of a spiritual masterpiece “The School of the Holy Spirit”, written by the French spiritual master Jacques Philippe.   The essence of this book is very clear and simple. If we want to arrive at sanctity of life we must get to know the Holy Spirit, love the Holy Spirit and manifest this knowledge and love by being docile to His heavenly inspirations!  Purchase and read!  You will never regret it!

7.    BE CAREFUL AND ALERT!   The work of the devil is to discourage us, make us sad and to push us into desolation and then despair. Be aware of the workings of the Holy Spirit. The workings of “The sweet Guest of the soul” are the direct opposite of the devil.  How does the Holy Spirit work? St. Ignatius of Loyola in his rules for discernment specifies how the Good Spirit works.  He strengthens our resolve to follow Jesus and fortifies our faith, hope, charity. He infuses peace and joy and energy to follow the Lord. He encourages us to lift our mind to heaven. He consoles us with the thoughts of the eternal salvation of our soul. Therefore, do not allow the devil to discourage you, but let the Holy Spirit encourage and strengthen you!

8.    PRAYER, PENANCE, POWER, PERSEVERANCE, AND PERFECTION. Try to connect these “5 P’s” to union with the Holy Spirit; all are necessary for a constant and growing union with the Holy Spirit.  We must pray to the Sanctifier. Also, as Mary and the Apostles acted in the Cenacle for this powerful novena, we must practice penance or self-denial.  This will give our will power--- or if you like “Will-power” to do good. However, the journey can be long and cumbersome, we must persevere and if we fall bounce back! Then if we are faithful to the first 4’P’s the Holy Spirit will bring us to perfection in the following of Jesus.

9.    LONELINESS? PROBLEMS?   If you experience loneliness and are weighed down by many problems then never forget to enter into the depths of your soul and speak to the Holy Spirit whose name is “Sweet Guest of the soul”.  You will recognize that you are really not alone and that your problems and crosses are not as heavy as you think. Rather, the Holy Spirit can help you to resolve your problems or at least help you to cope with them.

10. MARY AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.   Mary is the Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son, and she is the Mystical Spouse of the Holy Spirit. St. Maximilian Kolbe has written brilliantly on the intimate relationship between Mary and the Holy Spirit. Also Saint Louis de Montfort has gone so far in saying: “Those who love Mary, the Holy Spirit flings Himself into that soul,” if you like, as a powerful Frisbee cutting through the air going from one hand to the next.   If you want to have a powerful invasion in your heart of the Holy Spirit,  a personal Pentecost experience in your life, then why not turn to Mary. As the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles the day of Pentecost through Mary’s prayers and presence, He can descend into your soul through the prayers and presence of Mary.  “Come Holy Spirit, come, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

Archbishop Chaput: Ten ways to deepen our relationship with God

The following comes from the Catholic Philly:

Over the years I’ve heard from many good people who want a closer relationship with God.  But they’re stymied by what they perceive as God’s silence.  What they often mean, without knowing it, is that they’d like God to do something dramatic in their lives; something with a hint of Mt. Sinai that proves his credentials.

But God typically doesn’t work that way.  He’s not in the theater business.  God wants to be loved and even in a sense “courted” – which means that we can’t be passive partners in the relationship.  We need to pursue God as we would the persons we love.

So as we make our way through these last weeks of ordinary time before Lent, here a few steps – in no particular order – that can help us draw closer to God.

First, start by listening to him.  Faith isn’t a 12-step action program.  Nor is it an algebra problem that needs to be “solved.”  It’s a love affair.  As with a spouse, the most important thing we can do is to be present and listen.  This requires the investment of time and focus.  If a spirit of impatience or pretending to listen doesn’t work with your spouse, why would it work with God?

Second, cultivate silence.  We can’t listen when our world is filled with noise and toys.  C.S. Lewis often said that noise is the music of hell.  Our toys – those things we choose to distract us – keep us diverted from focusing on the main questions of life:  Why are we here?  What does my life mean?  Is there a God, and if so, who is he, and what does he ask of me?

Third, seek humility.  Humility is to the spirit what material poverty is to the senses: the great purifier.  Humility is the beginning of sanity.  We can’t really see – much less love – anyone or anything else when the self is in the way.  When we finally, really believe in our own sinfulness and unimportance, many other things become possible: repentance; mercy, patience, forgiveness of others.  These virtues are the foundation stones of that other great Christian virtue: justice.  No justice is ever possible in a spider’s web of mutual anger, recrimination and hurt pride.

Fourth, cultivate honesty.  Complete honesty is only possible for a humble person.  The reason is simple.  The most painful but important honesty is telling the truth to ourselves about our own motives and our own actions.  The reason honesty is such a powerful magnet is because it’s so rare.

Modern life is too often built on the marketing of half-truths and lies about who we are and what we deserve.  Many of the lies are well-intentioned and not even very harmful — but they’re still lies.  Scripture praises the honest woman and man because they’re like clean air in a room full of smoke.  Honesty allows the mind to breathe and think clearly.

Fifth, seek to be holy.  Holy does not mean nice or even good, although truly holy people are always good and often – though not always — nice.  Holiness means “other than.”  It’s what Scripture means when it tells us to be “in the world, but not of the world.”  And this doesn’t just miraculously happen.  We need to choose and seek holiness.

God’s ways are not our ways.  Holiness is the habit of seeking to conform all of our thoughts and actions to God’s ways.  There’s no cookie-cutter model of holiness, just as piety can’t be reduced to one particular kind of prayer or posture.  What’s important is to love the world because God loves it and sent his Son to redeem it, but not to be captured by its habits and values, which are not godly.

Sixth, pray.  Prayer is more than just that portion of the day when we advise God about what we need and what he should do.  Real prayer is much closer to listening, and it’s intimately tied to obedience.  God certainly wants to hear what we need and love and fear, because these things are part of our daily lives, and he loves us.  But if we’re doing the talking, we can’t listen.  Note too, that we can’t really pray without humility.  Why?  Because prayer requires us to lift up who we are and everything we experience and possess to God.  Pride is too heavy to lift.

Seventh, read.  Scripture is the living Word of God.  When we read God’s Word, we encounter God himself.  But there’s more: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Georges Bernanos and so many others – these were deeply intelligent and powerful writers whose work nourishes the Christian mind and soul, while also inspiring the imagination.  Reading also serves another, simpler purpose: It shuts out the noise that distracts us from fertile reflection.  We can’t read The Screwtape Letters and take network television seriously at the same time.  And that’s a very good thing.

By the way, if you do nothing else in 2014, read Tolkien’s wonderful short story, Leaf by Niggle.  It will take you less than an hour, but it will stay with you for a lifetime.  And then read C.S. Lewis’ great religious science-fiction trilogy – Out of the Silent Planet,Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.  You’ll never look at our world in quite the same way again.

Eighth, believe and act.  Nobody “earns” faith.  It’s a free gift from God.  But we do need to be willing and ready to receive it.  We can discipline ourselves to be prepared.   If we sincerely seek truth; if we desire things greater than this life has to offer; and if we leave our hearts open to the possibility of God — then one day we will believe, just as when we choose to love someone more deeply, and turn our hearts sincerely to the task, then sooner or later we usually will.

Feelings are fickle.  They’re often misleading.  They’re not the substance of our faith.  We need to be grateful for our emotions as God’s gifts, but we also need to judge them in the light of common sense.  Falling in love is only the first taste of love.  Real love is both more beautiful and more demanding than the early days of a romance.

In like manner, a dramatic “road to Damascus” style conversion doesn’t happen to most people, and not even St. Paul stayed on the road very long.  Why?  Because in revealing himself to Paul, Jesus immediately gave him something to do.  We know and more deeply love Jesus Christ by doing what he tells us to do.

In the real world, feelings that endure follow actions that have substance.  The more sincere we are in our discipleship, the closer we will come to Jesus Christ.  This is why the Emmaus disciples only recognized Jesus in “the breaking of the bread.”  Only in acting in and on our faith, does our faith become fully real.

Ninth, nobody makes it to heaven alone.  We all need friendship and community.  A friend of mine who’s been married more than 40 years likes to say that the heart of a good marriage is friendship.  Every successful marriage is finally about a deep and particular kind of friendship that involves honesty, intimacy, fidelity, mutual sacrifice, hope and shared beliefs.

Every successful marriage is also a form of community.  Even Jesus needed these two things: friendship and community.  The Apostles were not simply Christ’s followers; they were also his brothers and friends, people who knew and supported him in an intimate way.  All of us as Christians need the same two things.  It doesn’t matter whether we’re a religious, layperson, deacon or priest, single or married.  Friends are vital.  Community is vital.  Our friends both express and shape who we are.  Good friends sustain us.  Bad friends undermine us.  And that’s why they’re so decisive to the success or failure of a Christian life.

Tenth and finally, nothing is more powerful than the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist in leading us to the God we seek.  God makes himself available to us every week in the confessional, and every day in the sacrifice of the Mass.  It makes little sense to talk about the “silence of God” when our churches are made silent by our own absence and indifference.  We’re the ones with the cold hearts – not God.

He’s never outdone in his generosity.  He waits for us in the quiet of the tabernacle.  And he loves us and wants to be loved wholeheartedly in return.

If we’re willing to give that love, these steps will lead us to him.

The Word in Silence Glitters Gold

The following comes from Elizabeth Scalia at OSV:

G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.” 

I am bound to agree. After decades of writing freelance, I have come to realize that nothing so challenges and satisfies as writing about Jesus Christ and His truth as articulated through the Catholic Church — popes and pew-sitters alike. To follow the great Marcus Grodi on the back page of The Catholic Answer is a vast privilege and humbling challenge, which makes me a bit of a grateful beggar; there’s a reason why this new column is called Ora Pro Nobis. How blessed I am, though, to launch it in an issue so chock-full of perilous, exciting and instructive orthodoxy! 

Seeing Jerid Miller’s piece on Verbum Domini land at The Catholic Answer in the same month I debut here is one of those small-but-happy synchronicities that make you feel you’re being looked after. Small bites of Pope Benedict XVI’s beautifully wrought exhortation on the Word of God, taken in concert with other sacred reading, have been flavoring all of my study with a consoling steadiness that builds from a single line to which I keep returning: “The realist is the one who recognizes in the word of God the foundation of all things” (Verbum Domini, No. 10). 

On first reading that, I gasped at the simple profundity. If this is true, and if the Word of God, the Logos existing before all things is All-Good, then it follows that all created creatures — all things, down to their spinning atoms — are good and founded upon this Word. 

On some level we must know this to be true, yet only a relative handful of human beings, among the billions who have walked the earth, seem to have found it obvious. Chesterton was onesuch, as evidenced in the unending sense of surprised delight he took of the world and everything in it. He found newspaper ink to be as wonderful as beach glass, which — it went without saying — was to him as glorious as a good cigar or a glass of beer or orthodoxy. As awe-struck and grateful for the world as a teenager in love, he routinely saw goodness about him, and pondered the unconditional gift of days, asking, “Why am I allowed two?” 

In Chesterton’s wordy sphere, though, how did he gain his wondering insightfulness? He lived and breathed the 19th-century equivalent of social media (what a blogger he would have been!) of which our pope writes: “Ours is not an age which fosters recollection; at times one has the impression that people are afraid of detaching themselves, even for a moment, from the mass media. For this reason, it is necessary nowadays that the people of God be educated in the value of silence . . . only in silence can the word of God find a home in us, as it did in Mary, woman of the world and, inseparably, woman of silence” (VD, No. 66). 

Do we lose sight of God’s ever-present goodness simply because we are underexposed to true silence? For all his gregariousness, Chesterton’s mostly unplugged era provided necessary pockets of deep silence, a different means of connectedness which we lately encounter only by force of will. To consent to be in silence is a kind of humility; it involves a potent giving up of the self. St. Therese Couderc, the foundress of the Cenacle Sisters, understood this, and in her ministry assisted retreatants toward such recollectedness. Devalued by her own community, however, she was forced to live deeply within silence, one which supports Benedict’s exhortation: “I saw written as in letters of gold this word Goodness, which I repeated for a long while with an indescribable sweetness. I saw it, I say, written on all creatures, animate and inanimate, rational or not, all bore this name of goodness. In a sense, St Therese Couderc was privileged to “see” the Verbum Domini, the Logos of all origins, contained in the single word “goodness.”