Short books that are full of wisdom and written by monks. M. Basil Pennington (1931-2005) was a monk at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts; Thomas Keating is a monk currently serving at St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado but he also served at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts with Pennington. Check out this site to view the beautiful St. Joseph's Abbey: http://www.spencerabbey.org/
To review these books I am going to post a few of the sections I highlighted for future reviewing:
99 Sayings by M. Basil Pennington
True centering prayer cannot but bring us into the kingdom of heaven. We may not experience it in any sensible way. but in faith we know it is so. And we will see it in our lives, as wer become more and more determined to do the will of the Father in heaven.
Do we think we are more capable than our Lord himself? How many times in the course of his few years of ministry did he not send the crowd away flee away to a solitary place, even when everyone was seeking him with their very legitimate and pressing needs. Even the Son of man needed his time with the Father to be refreshed and renewed for his ministry.
We need those times of prayer when we listen not just with our ears, our eyes, our minds, but more with our hearts, with our whole being. It is outside the time of prayer that we will begin to see the difference, as the fruits of the Spirit begin to flourish in our lives.
It would be a great mistake to try to do the prayer "right.": It is, rather, making space in our lives, both in regard to time and to mental attitude and desire, to allow God to reveal to us our true selves in the eyes of his love and to bring us to the freedom of the sons and daughters of God. Some things can only be known by experience. That is true of this kind of experiential prayer. "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). "Taste and see how sweet the Lord is" (Psalm 33:9).
The Spiritual Senses by Thomas Keating
..... listening to the heartbeat of the Savior, which is the purpose of contemplative prayer and its mysterious resting
..... when we taste something, we transform it into ourselves; it becomes a part of us
..... this is not a presence through a concept or feeling but a presence through faith. One awakens to the undifferentiated presence of God beyond concepts, feelings, and particular acts, except to maintain the intention of loving, reverent waiting upon God
..... fidelity to the interview day by day proves one's sincerity and determination to grow in this deepening relationship with Christ
.....to commune is to rest in each other's presence and to enjoy the mutual gift of each other's presence without saying or doing anything, except perhaps to hold hands. The personal gift of oneself to God and of God to us is exactly what contemplation understood in its rational meaning, is
On Prayer by Thomas Keating
..... the word "repent" does not refer to penitential exercises or external practices but means change the direction in which you are looking for happiness
..... not only are we not who we think we are, but other people are not who we, or they, think they are. Our judgments about our character and other people's characters --- and the reality of the world within and around us ---are largely incorrect. We see everything upside down or from the perspective of downright ignorance
..... the question of our relationship with God is crucial. There are, of course, as many relationships with God as there are people.
..... the God of Christian faith becomes a human being in the person of Jesus and, in doing so, becomes not only one with the human family as a whole, but one with each of its members in particular
..... in the beginning, external silence and solitude are very helpful in order to develop the habit of listening to God's presence beyond the noises and preoccupations of everyday life or the particular environment we may be in. With practice we learn to integrate external noises into our prayer without either resisting them or paying any attention to them.
..... God's first language is silence. As soon as we put the deep knowledge of God into words, we have interpreted it. Every translations is in some degree an interpretation.
..... We believe that god is already present. Hence, there is no place to go to find him and no need to run away from ourselves
..... The ego acts as a kind of bridge from the past to the future, hindering us from every being where God actually is, which is in the present moment
..... We pray in secret when in our hearts alone and in our recollected spirit, we address God and reveal our wishes only to Him. Hence, we must pray in utter silence
No comments:
Post a Comment