“Variable and therefore miserable condition of man; this minute, I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surprised with a sudden change, & alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and air, and exercises, and we hew, and we polish every stone, that goes to that building; and so our health is a long & a regular work;... Read more
How best to let Him grow in us, we learn From you, Theotokos, mother of our Lord; How best to hold that hunger when we yearn His birth in us, all waiting for His Word Till sheer desire burst – you guide us right; How best to pray when eagerness or swords Divide our souls; how, in black night, To love too rapt for more than gasping words, You wake us! He touched Jacob on the thigh, More intimately you,... Read more
Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because He cannot be at home in it, because He is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, His place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are... Read more
“It all happened in silence; it happens in silence.” A Monk of Snowmass Monastery While visiting Gethsemani Abbey in 2013 (former home and resting place of Thomas Merton), I wandered off into the woods for a brief, silent walk. Although it was starting to get cold and the walk was beginning to feel long – I sensed a nudge to go just a little farther. Once reaching the top of the hill a deer briskly jumped over the path just... Read more
Many of people I would call “Neo-Contemplatives” that I have met within Catholicism have a contemplative prayer practice that revolves almost exclusively around “word-based practices” like Centering Prayer or Lectio Divina. While I practice Lectio, I consider myself a poor “word-based” practitioner and so the majority of my practice is centered on Marian devotion with a healthy thrust toward my patron saint. I’m aware that I leave myself open to charges of superstition, magical thinking, or worse from my... Read more
O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death. (from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) Today we reach the crisis of solstice. The days begin to grow longer, and we begin to discern what has been hidden for so long in the land of shade. Christ the Light comes in our hearts, and history herself dazzles with the dawn. But not all... Read more
O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel; you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open: Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. In these last days, we have chanted the O antiphons as the darkness gathers. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, as chronos unceasingly marches toward the solstice, our physical days mirror the Mystery that kairos offers. This Great... Read more
O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples; before you kings will shut their mouths, to you the nations will make their prayer: Come and deliver us, and delay no longer. Oh anointed one of Jesse, line of David, who silences kings and comes to liberate, prune my heart and call forth the seedling that you have planted there. Grow O root! Bear the fruit that the world needs to truly live! Come and deliver us,... Read more
O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai:Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm. Now that I have been reminded that you truly are a God who hides, and I realize seeking your elusive presence in solitude is truly to seek Wisdom, I come to see that to call you my Lord is to follow in the footsteps of Moses. Can I... Read more
“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender oneself to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes the work fruitful.” Thomas Merton Monasticism and... Read more
The Inner Room
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