Below you’ll find the quotes posted in the past week to Contemplative in the Mud’s accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter, or, if you were Cardinal Bergoglio, “that 140-character thing”).

You might note the images bring out the beauty of nature, and the CitM logo is green-ish instead of blue-ish. These are initiatives for the Season of Creation, which, as I have recently been writing, is a very contemplative-influenced and -based time of the year for Christians.

Together with the awe-filled contemplation of creation which we find in Saint Francis of Assisi, the Christian spiritual tradition has also developed a rich and balanced understanding of the meaning of work, as, for example, in the life of Blessed [now Saint] Charles de Foucauld and his followers. — Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ 125

It is not for the creature to use empty and insipid words when the Creator Himself deigns to speak. — Saint Jane Frances de Chantal on silence and contemplation

If a soul wishes to speak with its Father and enjoy His company, it does not have to go to heaven… It needs no wings to go in search of Him but only to find a place where it can be alone and look upon Him present within itself. — Saint Teresa of Avila

The work of salvation takes place in obscurity and stillness. In the heart’s quiet dialogue with God the living building blocks out of which the kingdom of God grows are prepared, the chosen instruments for the construction forged. — Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)