Tag: St. Augustine (Page 1 of 2)

Where are YOU now? Really, spiritually?

December 14, 2018 / MSFriend / 1 Comment

spiritually childlike — Spiritually childlike

Where are YOU now? Really, where are you spiritually? The older I get the more I realize I need to “check myself” before I judge or criticize someone else. Dear friends, I have a secret to share – you’re not perfect……..AND NEITHER AM I! Look in the mirror. We all have ways about us that are less than perfect, ways that can use adjusting. Actually, I would go out on a limb and say there are things about us that are most likely judged and criticized by others. I can guarantee that there are things we do and say ourselves that we would be quick to judge or criticize about others.

In this same vein, it occurred to me just this morning how much we expect of God. We expect so much but fail to deliver on what He expects of us. When things don’t go our way we have the audacity to ask him: “Where are you?” How often do you think God asks that of us?! Did I hear you gasp? Light bulb moment? I know it was for me this morning.

Spiritually spent?

So, why don’t you ask yourself today – where am I now, spiritually? Am I the same person I was 20 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago? Heck, am I the same person I was 2 weeks ago? Has my spiritual/prayer routine gone unchanged for decades? I would hope your answer is DEFINITELY NOT! I would like to believe I am not the same person I was just yesterday.

Of course, I can ‘t take credit for the positive changes I feel I’ve made up to this point. To God ALL the glory. All I can take credit for is “showing up” each day to receive all God has to offer me through prayer, meditation, Scripture, spiritual reading and community (friends and family members that inspire me to be better and do better). How important that is for me to show up so that He can transform me. He is the potter, I am the clay.

Inspired by Richard Rohr

I began thinking about this today after reading Richard Rohr’s Daily Reflection. You can read the whole thing here. Here’s the part that got my attention:

If we do not discover a prayer practice that “invades” our unconscious, and reveals what is hidden, we actually change very little over our lifetime………When you meditate consistently, a sense of your autonomy and private self-importance–what you think of as your “self”–falls away, little by little, as unnecessary, unimportant, and even unhelpful. The imperial “I,” the self that you likely think of as your only self, reveals itself as largely a creation of your mind.

Through regular access to contemplation, you become less and less interested in protecting this self-created, relative identity. You don’t have to attack it; it calmly falls away of its own accord and you experience a kind of natural humility……..In meditation, you move from ego consciousness to soul awareness, from being fear-driven to being love drawn.

Meditation

I started this blog over three years ago when my meditation practice was in it’s “infancy.” I wanted to share with others how amazing the practice of meditation really is. I cannot adequately express how deeply it has moved and transformed me. Want to know how I know I’ve been transformed? It’s quite simple, I’m an attorney who no longer feels the need to prove to others that I am right. Actually, I am an attorney who no longer feels the need to be right! That’s “off stage”, of course!

In addition to all that, there’s a particular peace and joy that resides in my innermost being. A peace and a joy that cannot be shaken no matter the circumstance. The peace and joy comes from feeling God’s Presence around me at all times. I no longer have the audacity to ask: “where are you now?” because I know, to steal a line from St. Augustine, He is closer to me than I am to myself.

So every morning I “show up” for meditation. I say yes to just sitting with God. I imagine myself on the potter’s wheel as I sit. Although I may not “feel” anything at times I know He, the potter, is at work. I surrender to His action and Presence in my life. Yes thoughts creep in every so often. There are days I feel a sense of consolation and then there are days I feel total desolation. It happens. It’s all normal and so life changing!

So, the next time God asks: “Where are you now?” Will you respond as Samuel did? Will you show up? Please do and share your experience with me. God bless you!

Confessions of St. Augustine

August 28, 2017 / MSFriend / 0 Comments

Your immutable light!

The Confessions of St. Augustine – therein lies our hope. Here was a man whose younger years were spent on dissipation and sin. Many a time he disregarded the promptings of the Holy Spirit. One of the lines attributed to him went something like this: “Lord make me chaste, but not yet.” Despite all of this and thanks to many many years of motherly love and prayer, St. Augustine experienced a conversion and became a pillar of the Catholic faith. Today, on his feast day, I want to share some words from his autobiography, Confessions. Ponder his words, savor the description of his experience. It’s something we should all aspire to – growth and deeper union with God!

Urged to reflect upon myself, I entered under your guidance into the inmost depth of my soul. I was able to do so because you were my helper. On entering into myself I saw, as it were, the eye of the soul, what was beyond the eye of the soul, beyond my spirit: Your immutable light. It was not the ordinary light perceptible to all flesh, nor was it merely something of greater magnitude but still essentially akin, shining more clearly and diffusing itself everywhere by its intensity. No, it was something entirely distinct, something altogether different from all these things; and it did not rest above my mind as oil on the surface of water, nor was it above me as heaven is above earth. This light was above me because it made me; I was below it because I was created by it. He who has come to know the truth knows this light.

O eternal truth, true love and beloved eternity. You are my God. To you do I sigh day and night. When I first came to know you, you drew me to yourself so that I might see that there were things for me to see, but that I myself was not yet ready to see them. Meanwhile you overcame the weakness of my vision, sending forth most strongly the beams of your light, and I trembled at once with love and dread. I learned that I was in a region unlike yours and far distant from you, and I thought I heard your voice from on high: “I am the food of grown men, grow then, and you will feed on me. Nor will you change me into yourself like bodily food, but you will be changed into me.”

I sought a way to gain the strength which I needed to enjoy you. But I did not find it until I embraced the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who is above all, God blessed for ever. He was calling me and saying: I am the way of truth, I am the life. He was offering the food which I lacked the strength to take, the food he had mingled with our flesh. For the Word became flesh, that your wisdom, by which you created all things might provide milk for us children.

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they have not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

Such deep, beautiful, inspiring words! I recently read something which described a “spectrum” of spirituality. It described fundamentalism and mysticism as opposite ends of the spectrum. Fundamentalism is defined as a religious movement characterized by a strict belief in the literal interpretation of religious text. Mysticism is defined as a doctrine of an immediate spiritual intuition of truths believed to transcend ordinary understanding, or of a direct, intimate union of the soul with God through contemplation or ecstasy. There’s no question that what St. Augustine is describing here is a mystical experience.