in hospital room:
Shut up,
Love,
And pray
The Tractatus consists of seven numbered propositions, with more or less extensive commentary – or rather, of six propositions with commentary and one without. The best-known of the seven propositions are the first and the last:1. Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist. (“The world is everything, that happens to be the case.”)7. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen. (“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”)
(--from, Tractatus 7.1: Translation and Silence, by Peter Caws, in Philosophy Now) https://philosophynow.org/issues/58/Tractatus_71_Translation_and_Silence
Contemplative prayer is, in a way, simply the preference for the desert, for emptiness, for poverty. One has begun to know the meaning of contemplation when he intuitively and spontaneously seeks the dark and unknown path of aridity in preference to every other way.
(from The Climate of Monastic Prayer, by Thomas Merton)
To the visitor or newcomer a day in the monastery may appear to have a seamless, uncluttered beauty and perfect orderliness. The monastery is beautiful and our day has a rhythm and formality. As monks we know that as we seek to be faithful in work, in prayer and in fraternal relationship, we very often arrive at a place of vulnerability born of a somewhat bitter self-knowledge. We learn that the monastic life is not about our achievement but about our readiness to make our weakness available to the mercy of God. Perhaps this is our most important work- to realize that we are in desperate need of this mercy. At best we become accustomed to letting things fall apart, noticing the fragmentation that is inevitable, unavoidable and ready to welcome it as opportunity. In the end the harmony and integrity that we seek as monks can be ours because God desires to transform all that is fractured and broken in us into something whole and beautiful.
(--by a monk, St Joseph Abbey, 7Feb2012) http://spencerabbey1098.blogspot.com/2012/02/transformation.html
If you are willing to bear in peace the trial of not being pleased with yourself, you will be offering the Lord Jesus a home in your heart. It is true you will suffer, for you will feel like a stranger in your own house. But do not fear, for the poorer you are, the more Christ will love you.Unrecognized, mostly incognito, nearly transparent, the environment itself with nothing extraneous.
(--Saint Thérèse of Lisieux)
Trappist burial. |
January 28, 2016: Father Robert Morhous was born in 1932 in Albany, New York (USA). He entered Spencer in 1954, made his solemn profession in 1959 and was also ordained a priest in 1959. Father was 83 years old, had been in monastic vows for 59 years and 56 years a priest when the Lord called him.
(image from Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe NM) |
We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen.
(-- Thomas Merton)
“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.”The koan Fr. Robert gave me sitting together a decade ago at the monastery where he lived has become a mantra, “Cheer up, Bill, things are only going to get worse.”
(― Thomas Merton, Love and Living )
(image from St Joseph Abbey, Spencer MA) |