Time for a Re-Visit!

I think it's time for a re-visit.  I would like to take another look at "the cloistered heart," at its basic analogies, at the whats and whys and wheres and hows.  Oh, I know that's what I technically do here on a regular basis, but I personally could use a back-to-the-very-basics-refresher.  Besides: new people come here on a daily basis (welcome!), and it's easy to get lost when we're trying to make our way through a blog like this one.

This is another of those "things-that-will-take-several-posts."  Because much has been covered in the past, I'll be quoting some earlier writings and perhaps even re-posting a few things.  But I have a feeling there will be new thoughts stirred into the mix along the way... new "areas of the monastery" we have not yet explored. 

For now, I will leave us with a few questions to ponder - and, ideally, to take to prayer...

• Do I find the idea of a cloistered heart appealing?  Why or why not?

• Probably I live in the midst of the world.  Maybe I'm married.  I might have a stressful job, a busy life, a house filled with children.  How can "monasticism" have anything at all to do with me?

Tomorrow (or later today, technically, for I write this after midnight), we'll look a bit more into what the cloistered heart is.... and what it is not.

Hope to see you then!

Painting:  Nannette Bleuler, Rheinfall; in US public domain due to age

Click here to leave comments in the Parlor

Fly For a Moment

'Fly for a moment from your affairs, 

escape for a little while 

from the tumult of your thoughts. 

Put aside now your weighty cares

and leave your wearisome toils.

Abandon yourself for a brief space

to God

and rest for a little in Him. 

 Go into the inner chamber of your mind.

Shut out everything save God

and whatever may help you in seeking God.  

Then, having barred the door of your chamber,

seek Him.'

St. Anselm
 

 

Painting:  Harold Knight, Morning Sun, 1913

Come, Visit the Joy!

If we are at all interested in cloistered life, we're likely to love the following video clip.  I know I did. 

"Our labor here is brief, 
but the reward is eternal.  
Do not be disturbed 
by the clamor of the world, 
which passes like a shadow." 
(St. Clare of Assisi)



Painting:  Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, 
St. Clare Tending Plants, in US public domain






Click here to leave comments in the Parlor

This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Linkup Blitz

The Shattered Wall

We've spent Lent (on this blog) slipping, sliding, grasping, flailing, glimpsing, climbing our way up several kinds of walls.  We've looked for ways over and around and through.  We've encountered locks and bars and ropes.

And then there was Easter.

Now, suddenly no lock is keyless.

Now, there is a way through walls.

Basically, it all comes down to This......




"Suddenly the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom..." (Matthew 27:51)



To return to the beginning of this 'mini-series' on walls, click here.

Come to Me

'It is You, O divine risen Lord, Who come to me; You Who after having expiated sin by Your sufferings, have vanquished death by Your triumph...

'Come to me to destroy the works of the devil, and to destroy sin and my infidelities; come to me to detach me from all that is not You; come to make me a partaker of that superabundant perfect life which now overflows from Your sacred Humanity.

'I will then sing with You a hymn of praise to Your Father, Who has crowned You as our Head upon this day of honor and glory.'
 
                                                C. Marmion




Click here to leave comments in the Parlor


Painting: William Adolphe Bouquereau, Prayer at St. Anne d'Auray