One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other men.----------------------------------------------Gender-inclusive version:...
One of the laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not solve problems: you bear with them until they solve themselves.
The dawn is an awakening to a deepening realization of who we really are in and with God and the world, and of what has been going on within us in the night. Always, and most important, the dawn is an awakening in love. Contemplatives of all traditions agree on one...
…until we are quiet and listen, we can never know what is really going on—even in ourselves. Especially in ourselves. Silence frightens us because it is silence that brings us face-to-face with ourselves. It tells us what we’re obsessing about. it reminds us of what...
We must not be led to believe that the Disciplines are only for spiritual giants and hence beyond our reach, or only for contemplatives who devote all their time to prayer and meditation. Far from it. God intends the Disciplines of the spiritual life to be for...