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“KNOCK AND THE DOOR SHALL BE OPENED”

“KNOCK AND THE DOOR SHALL BE OPENED” (MT 7:7; LK 11:9) “Let us sit still and keep our attention fixed within ourselves,” says Evagrius. Simone Weil describes prayer in much the same spirit when she says “Prayer consists of attention,” and “the quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer.” The practice of contemplation begins with our attention and our bodies. The basics are simple. We sit down and assume

Persons in Communion: The Disciplines of Communion (Part II)

The training of our consciousness enables us to recover an immediacy of response to anybody’s face, however spoilt, haggard, or careworn, and precisely because it is such. God loves this person here and now, in their very ordinariness, their cowardice, their loneliness, their sin. Our consciousness being awakened, the eye of the heart is opened, and we begin to see with the eyes of God. Then we can put ourselves in the other’s place, share

Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation

Stand diligently at the gate of the heart. —St. Philotheos The practice of stillness is full of joy and beauty. —Evagrius By the grace of creation and redemption, there is a grounding union between God and the human person. In the depths of this ground, the “between” cannot be perceived, for it is completely porous to the Divine Presence. Indeed there is more Presence than preposition. While this is the simplest and most fundamental fact

Silence

One of the elders said, “Just as it is impossible to see your face in troubled water, so also the soul, unless it is clear of alien thoughts, is not able to pray to God in contemplation.” Silence is the lost art in a society made up of noise.  Radios wake us up, and timers on TVs turn off the day-full of programs long after we have gone to sleep at night. We have music