Author: Resa Pearson

 “Religions should be understood as only the fingers that point to the moon, not the moon itself.” 

“Jesus is never upset at sinners; he is only upset with people who do not think they are sinners.”

“Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.”

“God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not waste too much time protecting the boxes.” 

“Religion is one of the safest places to hide from God.”

“It’s important to note that Jesus and Christ are two different faith affirmations. Hardly any Christians have been taught that – they think “Christ” is Jesus’s last name.”

“All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us.”

“The most common one-liner in the Bible is, “Do not be afraid.” Someone counted, and it occurs 365 times.”

“The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator.” 

“The cross is the standing statement of what we do to one another and to ourselves. The resurrection is the standing statement of what God does to us in return.”

“To the degree, you have experienced intimacy with God, you won’t be afraid of death because you’re experiencing the first tastes and promises of heaven in this world.” 

“Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had.”

“God comes to us disguised as our life.”

“When we sense the direction in which our heart is yearning, then we realize: In that direction lies God.”

“I’m not talking about long hours of prayer, long hours of meditation, spiritual reading or studying, or anything like that – because the essence of monastic life does not consist in any of those. Those are all means to an end. The end – in all of the monastic traditions, of both East and West – consists in cultivating mindfulness, being mindful. And “mindful” may be a little misleading, because it sounds a bit much like mind-over-body, but it has nothing to do with mind over or against body. I think “wholeheartedness” is the English word that expresses better what mindfulness as a technical term means; that you respond to every situation from your center, from your heart – that you listen with your heart to every situation, and your heart elicits the response.”

“Gratefulness is the only appropriate response to that which is given – and this life is a given. Every human being can realize that: We didn’t make ourselves, we didn’t even choose this life. If you train yourself to be grateful for everything, every moment, then when you come to something that you don’t like, you realize it’s still given and you have to deal with it. You will be alert to the gift within every gift, which is opportunity. In this case it may not be opportunity to enjoy but primarily the opportunity to do something about it.”

“The Word is, by definition, immanent in the divinity and active in the world, and as such the Father’s revelation. A revelation of the Father without the Logos and his incarnation would be like speaking without words.”
― Karl Rahner, The Trinity

“The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the most fundamental of our faith. On it everything else depends and from it everything else derives. Hence the Church’s constant concern to safeguard the revealed truth that God is One in nature and Three in Persons.”
—FATHER JOHN A. HARDON, S.J

“The Father is from no one; the Son is from the Father only; and the Holy Spirit is from both the Father and the Son equally. God has no beginning; He always is, and always will be. The Father is the progenitor, the Son is the begotten, the Holy Spirit is proceeding. They are all one substance, equally great, equally all-powerful, equally eternal.”
–Fourth Lateran Council, 1215

“The Father is entirely in the Son and entirely in the Holy Spirit; the Son is entirely in the Father and entirely in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is entirely in the Father and entirely in the Son. None of the persons precedes any of the others in eternity, nor does any have greater immensity or greater power. From eternity, without beginning, the Son is from the Father; and from eternity and without beginning, the Holy Spirit has proceeded from the Father and the Son.”
–The Council of Florence, 1439

The Father, Who is Justice, is not without the Son or the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit, Who kindles the heart of the faithful, is not without the Father and the Son; and the Son, Who is the plenitude of fruition, is not without the Father or the Holy Spirit; they are inseparable in Divine Majesty.
-Hildegard of Bingen

The quieting, mystical experience of Taizé Prayer.

“Since my youth, I think that I have never lost the intuition that community life could be a sign that God is love, and love alone. Gradually the conviction took shape in me that it was essential to create a community with men determined to give their whole life and who would always try to understand one another and be reconciled, a community where kindness of heart and simplicity would be at the center of everything.”  Brother Roger

“God is love alone” “When we try to express communion with God in words, we rapidly reach the end of our capacities. But in the depths of our being Christ is praying for more than we imagine. Compared to the immensity of that hidden prayer of Christ in us, our explicit praying dwindles to almost nothing. That is why silence is so essential in discovering the heart of prayer.

Although God never stops trying to communicate with us, God never wants to impose anything on us. Often God’s voice comes in a whisper, in a breath of silence. Remaining in silence in God’s presence, open to the Spirit, is already prayer. It is not a matter of trying to obtain inner silence at all costs by following some method that creates a kind of emptiness within. The important thing is a childlike attitude of trust by which we allow Christ to pray within us silently, and then one day, we will discover that the depths of our being are inhabited by a Presence.”

― Taizé, Songs and Prayers from Taize: Accompaniment Edition for Cantor & Instruments

This is one video in a series of 31 hour-long talks by Thomas Keating that make up his foundational video teachings, “The Spiritual Journey with Fr. Thomas Keating.” All of these talks are now available on YouTube. Fr. Thomas was an internationally renowned theologian, speaker and author of dozens of books including “Open Mind, Open Heart.” Fr. Thomas co-founded Contemplative Outreach, which offers this series and supports Centering Prayer. Along with Fr. William Meninger and Fr. Basil Pennington, Fr. Thomas began the Centering Prayer movement in the 1970’s to renew the Christian tradition of contemplation.

Go to http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org for more information on Centering Prayer, including retreats and local chapters that offer support to practitioners at all levels in the U.S. and around the world.

Henri Nouwen Book List

Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.

God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful.

The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.

To learn patience is not to rebel against every hardship.

Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering end up disconnecting our suffering from God’s suffering for us. The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through.

The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don’t see the results.

People with handicaps teach me that being is more important than doing, the heart is more important than the mind, and caring together is better than caring alone.

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.

Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.

The Christian leaders of the future have to be theologians, persons who know the heart of God and are trained – through prayer, study, and careful analysis – to manifest the divine event of God’s saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of their time.

www.henrinouwen.org

“If we are absolutely grounded in the absolute love of God that protects us from nothing even as it sustains us in all things, then we can face all things with courage and tenderness and touch the hurting places in others and in ourselves with love.”

“How strange God’s ways are! He calls us to a union we do not understand. He calls us to a place of encounter which we cannot find. We search and search. Our silence reveals to us not a garden of delights but an awful nothingness. God leaves us in an awful emptiness. All our initial enthusiastic notions of prayer deteriorate into an acknowledgement of our utter superficiality and lack of authenticity before God. We can only throw ourselves completely on his mercy. We can only wait in the darkness and cry out for our salvation. We can but trust that God’s love is such that our sinfulness does not even matter. We can only have faith.”

“The solution Merton suggests is that we should quit keeping score altogether and surrender ourselves with all our sinfulness to God who sees neither the score nor the scorekeeper but only his child redeemed by Christ.”

“All that we can do with any spiritual discipline is produce within ourselves something of the silence, the humility, the detachment, the purity of heart and the indifference which are required if the inner self is to make some shy, unpredictable manifestation of his presence.”

Fr. Carl Arico Recordings – Contemplative Outreach and Centering Prayer

Centering Prayer is a receptive method of Christian silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God’s presence within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself.

The Guidlines

1. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.
2. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within.
3. When engaged with your thoughts, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.
4. At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.