Category Archives: Contemplative Prayer

Daily Riches: Silence – The Most Pleasing Sacrifice (Rozanne Elder, Thomas Merton, Richard Foster and Friedrich Nietzsche) *

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Loving Listening, Prayer, Silence

“When we are quiet and alone, we fear that something will be whispered in our ears, and so we hate the quiet, and dull our senses in society.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

“Silence means a void, a dreadful emptiness that demands to be filled. What we choose to fill that void with most often produces, not only noise, but agitation through over-simulation. Sensory overload is addictive. It becomes an escape from the present, from the self, from God. Like any addiction, it is pathological and life-threatening. …Prayer uttered out of the deepest longing for God, however, demands silence.” Rozanne Elder

“The soul is offered to Him when it is entirely attentive to Him. My silence which takes me away from all other things, is therefore the sacrifice of all things and the offering of my soul to God. It is therefore my most pleasing sacrifice.”  Thomas Merton

“Yahweh will destroy Babylon;
he will silence her noisy din.”
Jeremiah 51:55

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Without silent patches in our days, we become “dull” to the present, self, and God. Has sensory overload created a pathological dullness in your life?
  • Have you tried to make yourself “entirely attentive to God” – not asking or confessing or meditating, but simply “offering your soul to God” – wordlessly attending to Him? silently resting in his loving arms? quietly returning his gaze, his love?
  • When we take time to sit silently we hear disturbing things “whispered in our ears.” Can you press through this in your pursuit of intimacy with God?

I have, O Lord, a noisy heart. And entering outward silence doesn’t stop the inner clamor. In fact, it seems only to make it worse. When I am full of activity, the internal noise is only a distant rumble; but when I get still, the rumble amplifies itself. And it is not like the majestic sound of symphony rising to a grand crescendo; rather it is the deafening din of clashing pots and clanging pans. …Worst of all, I feel helpless to hush the interior pandemonium. Dear Lord, Jesus, once you spoke peace to the wind and the wave. Speak your shalom over my heart. I wait silently…patiently. I receive into the very core of my being your loving command, “Peace, be still.”  Richard Foster

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For More: The Contemplative Path by Rozanne Elder

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

 

 

Daily Riches: Contemplative Prayer and Friendship with God (Thomas Keating) *

Posted on by under Contemplation, Contemplative Prayer, Prayer

“Contemplative prayer is a deepening of faith that moves beyond thoughts and concepts. One just listens to God, open and receptive to the divine presence in one’s inmost being as its source. One listens not with a view to hearing something, but with a view to becoming aware of the obstacles to one’s friendship with God.” Thomas Keating


To his disciples Jesus said:
“I no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know
his master’s business.
Instead, I have called you friends,
for everything that I learned from my Father
I have made known to you. …

And to his Father Jesus said:
I have made you known to them,
and will continue to make you known
in order that the love you have for me
may be in them
and that I myself may be in them.”
John 15:15 and 17:26

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Sometimes we think of God mostly as “out there.” Keating suggests listening for God’s presence in your “inmost being.” Does that seem strange or wrong, or perhaps misguided, to you?
  • Can you wrap your head around the God of heaven being your “friend” and making his residence “in” you (something emphasized by Jesus in John 13-17)?
  • “One listens … with a view to becoming aware of the obstacles to one’s friendship with God.” Are you willing to listen that way? If so, what specific plan can you make to see that you follow through with your good intentions?

Abba, I can’t understand why you would long to be my friend, desire my affection, or condescend to live in me. As I’m able to bear it, and as I take time to listen to you, please show me the obstacles in my life that hinder our friendship.

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For More: The Human Condition by Thomas Keating

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Attending to God in Prayer (Thomas Merton and John Higgins) *

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Loving Listening, Prayer

Contemplative prayer, for Thomas Merton, “…is essentially a listening … meant to open man’s heart to God by enabling him to surrender his inmost depths to God’s presence within him. … Therefore, man’s whole life of prayer must consist in a dynamic and loving attention to the presence of God and an awareness of his own dependence upon Him. Man belongs to God and it is in prayer that he must come to realize that the depths of his own being and life are meaningful and real only to the extent that they are open to God.”  John Higgins

“First, [contemplation] is supposed to give you sufficient control over your mind and memory and will to enable you to recollect yourself and withdraw from exterior things … and second–this is the real end of contemplation–it teaches you how to become aware of the presence of God; and most of all it aims at bringing you to a state of almost constant loving attention to God, and dependence on Him.” Thomas Merton

 “O God, you are my God;
  I earnestly search for you.
  My soul thirsts for you;
  my whole body longs for you
  in this parched and weary land
  where there is no water.”
  Psalm 63:1

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you think of prayer as giving your “loving attention to the presence of God?” Think about this understanding of prayer and then about your prayers and the prayers of others. Isn’t it easy to fall short of being present to God in a loving way?
  • Making requests is central to prayer, but prayer filled only with speaking can distract us from any real “listening.” Does this happen to you? What could you do differently to make sure you’re not only speaking but listening?
  • If there ever was a time when we lived in a “parched and weary land where there is no water” for our thirsty souls, it’s now. Listen to the psalmist again as he prays from a place of deep longing for God. Does your urgency to find satisfaction in the person of God manifest itself in this kind of urgency?

Abba, as I pray with the words you’ve given, help me to enter into the experience of thirst and satisfaction that you have for me. You are my God. I need you every hour.

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For More:  Thomas Merton on Prayer by John J. Higgins

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Knowing Self, Knowing God (John Calvin and Thomas Merton) *

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Learning Your Proper Place, Spiritual Formation

“… true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he ‘lives and moves’ [Acts 17:28]. …the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him. Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.”  John Calvin

“If I find God I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find God.” Merton

“Contemplation is also the response to a call … from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being….”  Merton

“I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord.
They will be my people, and I will be their God….”
Jeremiah 24:7a

Moving From the Head to the Heart

Calvin insists that “sound and true wisdom” consists in essentially two things – knowing ourselves and knowing God. We must know ourselves intimately to know God properly, and we must know God intimately to know ourselves properly.

  • Are you devoting as much effort to knowing yourself as you are to knowing God? Can you imagine truly knowing one and not the other?
  • Have you been “aroused to seek God” or “find” him in a new way through “scrutiny of yourself?”
  • Are you responding to the “call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything?”  Do you try to listen for his voice “in the depths of your own being?”

Abba, lead me, as it were, by the hand into a deeper experience of knowing myself … and you.

__________

For More: The Institutes by John Calvin

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Solitude and the Chattering Monkeys (Henri Nouwen, Pope Francis and David K. Flowers) *

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding; no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me—naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken—nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long, hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive—or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation.  … The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone.” Henri Nouwen

“In the history of salvation,
neither in the clamour nor in the blatant,
but the Shadows and the Silence
are the places in which God chose
to reveal himself to humankind.”
Pope Francis

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:16

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you avoid solitude? If so, why?
  • Are you expecting to find God, or be found by him in crowd’s “clamour?”
  •  Are you willing to “persevere” in your solitude until the “monkeys in the banana tree” give up and leave you alone?

“The world is full of people wanting to solve [its] problems. But the world would profit much more if people would first confront their own anxieties and the things that cause them 1) to have to fill every silence with meaningless chatter, 2) to stay constantly busy, and 3) to do anything to avoid being still.” David K. Flowers

Abba, deliver me from these tactics.

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For More: The Essential Henri Nouwen

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Practicing Attentiveness to the Divine Presence Within (Thomas Keating and Gerald May) *

Posted on by under Asceticism, Contemplation, Contemplative Prayer, Meditation, Prayer

“Contemplative prayer begins to make us aware of the divine presence within us, the source of true happiness. As soon as we begin to taste the peace that comes from the regular practice of contemplative prayer, it relativizes the whole unreal world of demands and ‘shoulds,’ of aversions and desires that were based on emotional programs for happiness that might have worked for children, but that are, in fact, killing us.” Thomas Keating

“In one sense, quiet prayer is really nothing other than the practice of faithful attentiveness. I am not speaking here of meditation that in­volves guided imagery or scriptural reflections, but of a more contemplative practice in which one just sits still and stays awake with God. This kind of meditation is extremely difficult, especially in the midst of battles with addiction, because it gives us nothing special to do, no fancy ways to entertain our­selves or to escape from the simple truth of the moment. Attentive meditation can be a true ascetic practice. It is like fasting for the mind. One only sits there, inclined toward God, noticing the thoughts and sensations that come and go, adding nothing to them, subtracting nothing from them. The mind is allowed to be what it is, but it is seen. When properly practiced and truly graced, this kind of meditation—to the extent that we can bear it—can be very powerful in exposing and vaporizing mind tricks.” Gerald May

“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father,
and you are in me, and I am in you. …
The one who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
Jesus in John 14:20-21

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Can you identify “emotional programs for happiness” in place in your life that are “killing” you instead?
  • Do you believe the words of Jesus that as God’s child, God dwells in you? How often are you aware of this “divine presence within” you? Can you simply be “faithfully attentive” to it?
  • The regular practice of contemplative prayer “relativizes the whole unreal world of demands and ‘shoulds’…” and gives us peace. The world’s demands are relentless, so it is any wonder that this relativizing work must also be “regular” or relentless?
  • Is your practice of contemplative prayer helping you find peace, and expose and vaporize “mind tricks?”

Abba, help me to recognize and reject my emotional programs for happiness, as I regularly spend time in your presence and you lovingly put the world’s demands and desires into perspective for me. Help me to grow in my awareness of your divine presence in me, and find my happiness there.

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For More: The Human Condition by Thomas Keating

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“There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.” (Marie Antionette) , and thus “Men more often require to be reminded than informed.” (Samuel Johnson) The purpose of Daily Riches is to return again and again to a list of critical concepts at the core of the spiritual life. “Therefore, I will always remind you about these things—even though you [may] already know them and are standing firm in the truth you have been taught.” (2 Peter 1:12)  I appreciate your interest! When you find this helpful, please share! – Bill

Daily Riches: Exposed Before God (Thomas Merton) *

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Humility, Learning Your Proper Place

“ … we should let ourselves be brought naked and defenceless
into the center of that dread
where we stand alone before God in our nothingness,
without explanation, without theories,
completely dependent upon his providential care,
in dire need of the gift of his grace,
his mercy and the light of faith.”
Thomas Merton

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. ‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.'”  Isaiah 6:1-5

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Can you imagine being “brought naked and defenceless … before God?”  … “standing alone before God in your nothingness?”  feeling “undone” in the presence of God?
  • Why would Merton suggest that we not resist this? (“we should let ourselves be brought…”)
  • Teresa of Avila prayed, “Let me not be afraid to linger here in your presence will all my humanity exposed. For you are God – you are not surprised by my frailties, my continuous failures.” Can you use these words as the basis for a prayer of your own?

Abba, it’s dreadfully painful to have “all my humanity exposed” before anyone, including you. It’s in your presence though, that I am exposed yet safe. In spite of my all my humanity, may I linger before you today, presenting myself for healing – and may I do this without any attempt to lessen the pain by offering up explanations or excuses.

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For More: Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton;
Let Nothing Disturb You by Teresa of Avila

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and he seeks after you. My goal is to provide you with something of uncommon value each day in 400 words or less. Please follow and share my blog. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: “Practicing the Presence” (Peter Scazzero and Thomas Merton)

Posted on by under Contemplation, Contemplative Prayer, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Well, The Divine Gaze

“As emotionally mature Christian adults, we recognize that loving well is the essence of true spirituality. This requires that we experience connection with God, with ourselves, and with other people. God invites us to practice his presence in our daily lives. At the same time, he invites us “to practice the presence of people,” within an awareness of his presence, in our daily relationships. The two are rarely brought together. Jesus’ profound, contemplative prayer life with his Father resulted in a contemplative presence with people. Love is ‘to reveal the beauty of another person to themselves,’ wrote Jean Vanier. Jesus did that with each person he met. We see this in his interaction with the woman with a twelve year bleeding problem in Mark 5. This ability to really listen and pay attention to people was at the very heart of his mission. It could not help but move him to compassion. In the same way, out of our contemplative time with God, we too, are invited to be prayerfully present to people, revealing their beauty to themselves. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the ‘church leaders’ of that time, never made that connection.” Peter Scazzero

“Our contemplative practice is a ‘laboratory’ in which we learn to die to our passing emotions and thoughts and to receive the always-permanent Divine gaze. The rest of our life becomes the field in which we live out this participation in Love, bouncing back the gaze of grace to the Other and then having plenty left over for all others besides.” Richard Rohr

“But the goal of our instruction is love….” 1 Timothy 1:5

Moving From Head to Heart

  • When you think of the “essence of true spirituality”, to you think first of “loving well?”
  • Does being “present” to God make you more effective at being “present” to others?  and vice versa? Does either increase your compassion?
  • Is your love for others what is “left over” from your “participation in Love” with God?
  • Have you tried a contemplative approach to your faith? If not, what is stopping you?

Abba, teach me to receive and return your loving gaze as a starting point in being a person who loves.

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For More: The Daily Office by Peter Scazzero

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. Thanks!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Pray More Wisely, Pray More Wildly (Ted Loder, Arundhati Roy and Dawna Markova)

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Prayer, Social Justice

“Disturb my indifference,

Expose my practiced phoniness,
Shatter my brittle certainties,
Deflate my arrogant sophistries,
And craze me into a holy awareness
of my common humanity
And so, of my bony, bloody need
To love mercy,
Do justly,
And walk humbly with you – and with myself,
Trusting that whatever things it may be too late for,
Prayer is not one of them.”
Ted Loder

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.” Arundhati Roy

“I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible; to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance, to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.” Dawna Markova

“The Lord receives my prayer.” Psalm 6:9

Moving From the Head to the Heart

Only the first of these portions is technically a prayer or, it seems, explicitly Christian. Nevertheless, all three readings strike me as useful resources for praying more wisely, and thus more wildly (or vice versa) as a person of faith. Perhaps this is one of those times when we can learn something from those outside our usual circles of influence:

  • Notice the verbs in Loder’s prayer. Are you’re prayers sometimes “wild” like that? If not, is there good reason to hold back?
  • Notice the values in Roy’s powerful words of determination. Are your prayers often “wise” like that? Can you focus on one phrase and pray from that?
  • Notice Markova’s testimony. Are your prayers filled with such longing? abandon? purpose? Can you lift up your longings to God in prayer right now?

Abba, teach me to pray better than I pray.

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For More: Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle by Ted Loder

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Thanks for reading!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Silence – The Most Pleasing Sacrifice (Rozanne Elder, Thomas Merton, Richard Foster and Friedrich Nietzsche)

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Loving Listening, Prayer, Silence

“When we are quiet and alone, we fear that something will be whispered in our ears, and so we hate the quiet, and dull our senses in society.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

“Silence means a void, a dreadful emptiness that demands to be filled. What we choose to fill that void with most often produces, not only noise, but agitation through over-simulation. Sensory overload is addictive. It becomes an escape from the present, from the self, from God. Like any addiction, it is pathological and life-threatening. …Prayer uttered out of the deepest longing for God, however, demands silence.” Rozanne Elder

“The soul is offered to Him when it is entirely attentive to Him. My silence which takes me away from all other things, is therefore the sacrifice of all things and the offering of my soul to God. It is therefore my most pleasing sacrifice.”  Thomas Merton

“Yahweh will destroy Babylon;
he will silence her noisy din.”
Jeremiah 51:55

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Without silent patches in our days, we become “dull” to the present, self, and God. Has sensory overload created a pathological dullness in your life?
  • Have you tried to make yourself “entirely attentive to God” – not asking or confessing or meditating, but simply “offering your soul to God” – wordlessly attending to Him? silently resting in his loving arms? quietly returning his gaze, his love?
  • When we take time to sit silently we hear disturbing things “whispered in our ears.” Can you press through this in your pursuit of intimacy with God?

I have, O Lord, a noisy heart. And entering outward silence doesn’t stop the inner clamor. In fact, it seems only to make it worse. When I am full of activity, the internal noise is only a distant rumble; but when I get still, the rumble amplifies itself. And it is not like the majestic sound of symphony rising to a grand crescendo; rather it is the deafening din of clashing pots and clanging pans. …Worst of all, I feel helpless to hush the interior pandemonium. Dear Lord, Jesus, once you spoke peace to the wind and the wave. Speak your shalom over my heart. I wait silently…patiently. I receive into the very core of my being your loving command, “Peace, be still.”  Richard Foster

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For More: The Contemplative Path by Rozanne Elder

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Thanks for your interest in RicherByFar!!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

 

 

 

Daily Riches: Contemplative Prayer and Friendship with God (Thomas Keating)

Posted on by under Contemplation, Contemplative Prayer, Prayer

“Contemplative prayer is a deepening of faith that moves beyond thoughts and concepts. One just listens to God, open and receptive to the divine presence in one’s inmost being as its source. One listens not with a view to hearing something, but with a view to becoming aware of the obstacles to one’s friendship with God.” Thomas Keating


To his disciples Jesus said:
“I no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know
his master’s business.
Instead, I have called you friends,
for everything that I learned from my Father
I have made known to you. …

And to his Father Jesus said:
I have made you known to them,
and will continue to make you known
in order that the love you have for me
may be in them
and that I myself may be in them.”
John 15:15 and 17:26

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Sometimes we think of God mostly as “out there.” Keating suggests listening for God’s presence in your “inmost being.” Does that seem strange or wrong, or perhaps misguided, to you?
  • Can you wrap your head around the God of heaven being your “friend” and making his residence “in” you (something emphasized by Jesus in John 13-17)?
  • “One listens … with a view to becoming aware of the obstacles to one’s friendship with God.” Are you willing to listen that way? If so, what specific plan can you make to see that you follow through with your good intentions?

Abba, I can’t understand why you would long to be my friend, desire my affection, or condescend to live in me. As I’m able to bear it, and as I take time to listen to you, please show me the obstacles in my life that hinder our friendship.

__________

For More: The Human Condition by Thomas Keating

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Attending to God in Prayer (Thomas Merton and John Higgins)

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Loving Listening, Prayer

Contemplative prayer, for Thomas Merton, “…is essentially a listening … meant to open man’s heart to God by enabling him to surrender his inmost depths to God’s presence within him. … Therefore, man’s whole life of prayer must consist in a dynamic and loving attention to the presence of God and an awareness of his own dependence upon Him. Man belongs to God and it is in prayer that he must come to realize that the depths of his own being and life are meaningful and real only to the extent that they are open to God.”  John Higgins

“O God, you are my God;
  I earnestly search for you.
  My soul thirsts for you;
  my whole body longs for you
  in this parched and weary land
  where there is no water.”
  Psalm 63:1

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you think of prayer as giving your “loving attention to the presence of God?” Think about this understanding of prayer and then about your prayers and the prayers of others. Isn’t it easy to fall short of being present to God in a loving way?
  • Making requests is central to prayer, but prayer filled only with speaking can distract us from any real “listening.” Does this happen to you? What could you do differently to make sure you’re not only speaking but listening?
  • If there ever was a time when we lived in a “parched and weary land where there is no water” for our thirsty souls, it’s now. Listen to the psalmist again as he prays from a place of deep longing for God. Does your urgency to find satisfaction in the person of God reflect this kind of urgency?

Abba, as I pray with the words you’ve given, help me to enter into the experience of thirst and satisfaction that you have for me. You are my God. I need you every hour.

__________

For More:  Thomas Merton on Prayer by John J. Higgins

_________________________________________________

The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Knowing Self/Knowing God (John Calvin and Thomas Merton)

Posted on by under Contemplative Prayer, Learning Your Proper Place, Spiritual Formation

“… true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he ‘lives and moves’ [Acts 17:28]. …the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him. Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.”  John Calvin

“If I find God I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find God.” Merton

“Contemplation is also the response to a call … from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being….”  Merton

“I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord.
They will be my people, and I will be their God….”
Jeremiah 24:7a

Moving From Head to Heart

Calvin insists that “sound and true wisdom” consists in essentially two things – knowing ourselves and knowing God. We must know ourselves intimately to know God properly, and we must know God intimately to know ourselves properly.

  • Are you devoting as much effort to knowing yourself as you are to knowing God? Can you imagine truly knowing one and not the other?
  • Have you been “aroused to seek God” or “find” him in a new way through “scrutiny of yourself?”
  • Are you responding to the “call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything?”  Do you try to listen for his voice “in the depths of your own being?”

Abba, lead me, as it were, by the hand into a deeper experience of knowing myself … and you.

__________

For More: The Institutes by John Calvin

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: The Practice of Contemplative Prayer (Thomas Keating)

Posted on by under Contemplation, Contemplative Prayer, Prayer

“Contemplative prayer begins to make us aware of the divine presence within us, the source of true happiness. As soon as we begin to taste the peace that comes from the regular practice of contemplative prayer, it relativizes the whole unreal world of demands and ‘shoulds,’ of aversions and desires that were based on emotional programs for happiness that might have worked for children, but that are, in fact, killing us.” Thomas Keating

“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father,
and you are in me, and I am in you. …
The one who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
Jesus in John 14:20-21

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Can you identify “emotional programs for happiness” in place in your life that are “killing” you instead?
  • Do you believe the words of Jesus that as God’s child, God dwells in you? How often are you aware of this “divine presence within” you?
  • The regular practice of contemplative prayer “relativizes the whole unreal world of demands and ‘shoulds’…” and gives us peace. The world’s demands are relentless, so it is any wonder that this relativizing work must also be “regular” or relentless?
  • Are you finding peace and “true happiness” in regular contemplative prayer?

Abba, help me to recognize and reject my emotional programs for happiness, as I regularly spend time in your presence and you lovingly put the world’s demands and desires into perspective for me. Help me to grow in my awareness of your divine presence in me, and find my happiness there.

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For More: The Human Condition by Thomas Keating

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)