Today is World Communications Day, so I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on what communication means from a contemplative point of view. You’d think that, having a blog about Christian contemplation, this is a topic that I would have given much thought to and regarding which I would have developed a conscious …
Tag Archives: Raïssa Maritain
Touched and Drawn to the One Ideal (Quotes Vol. 40)
The quotes posted to social media (Facebook, Instagram, X) this past week included one for the feast day of John of Avila, alongside a few on the basic foundations of prayer. The soul whom God has touched interiorly can no longer find rest in anything that is not God. — Saint Teresa Benedicta of the …
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Contemplation with Christ at the Start of Earth Month (Quotes Vol. 35)
This past week, all the quotes posted to social media (Facebook, Instagram, X) spoke of the Christian (i.e., Christic) character of contemplation, as well as transitioned into Earth Month, with a special focus on the silence of nature: There is no prayer, no contemplation, unless Christ be in the soul, and unless an imitation of …
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Between Natural Beauty and Supernatural Suffering (Quotes Vol. 31)
In this third week of Lent, quotes posted to social media (Facebook, Instagram, X) continued the duality of a Laudato Si’ Lent and a Lent of the way of the Cross. To love sufferings and afflictions for the love of God is the highest degree of holy charity. — Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange Contemplation, which leads us …
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From Niagara Falls to Golgotha (Quotes Vol. 30)
In this second week of Lent, quotes posted to social media (Facebook, Instagram, X) moved from a Laudato Si’ Lent, i.e., contemplation of God the Creator, to a Lent of mortification, i.e., the experience of the Cross. I am going back again to the water which pours itself out before me. It is also an …
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What Will Our Lent be Dedicated to?
I asked the good Jesus that we may partake of Lent as and with him: these forty days in the desert, given by him solely to contemplation. What could be the activity of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in his most holy soul, in this human rest, in this solitude? Our Lent will not …
Confidence, Off to the Side in Nazareth (Quotes Vol. 27)
On social media (Facebook, Instagram, and X) this past week, the quotes moved through consideration of the confidence we have in God, onto the places where that confidence is lived—first among the Communion of Saints, also for most of us, in Nazareth: Confidence is the form that grace takes in the poor one who tends towards God. …
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Consumed More and More (Quotes Vol. 26)
On social media (Facebook, Instagram, and X) this past week, the quotes passed through the celebration of the feats day of Thomas Aquinas and Candlemas, and captured the picture of a spiritual life consumed more and more in the divine fire that draws us: Saint Thomas [Aquinas] was a ‘remarkably contemplative man.’ What does that mean? That …
God the Most Vulnerable: Indigenous Baptist and Catholic Perspectives
In the Incarnation, God became vulnerable. He took on vulnerability which he didn’t have otherwise. The Humanity of Jesus introduced this feature of divine love, by letting the vulnerability of material creatureliness have a share in the Godhead. This is how we normally speak. But is it actually right? Does it manifest the truth about …
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Something I Take for Granted
I’ve recently had cause to say to more than one person, as a way of explanation for why I think the way I do, “But I take Thomist metaphysics for granted.” Now, don’t run away. I’m not going to make this blog, or even this post, about philosophy or dogmatic theology. And I’m more than …
Contemplative in the Mud 