The key to avoiding discouragement is to remain in our house of self-knowledge, grounded in the humble truth of who we are as children of our heavenly Father.
All quotes between the blue lines are St. Catherine’s. The one that doesn’t mention the source is from the same letter as the quote above it. St. Catherine is a wellspring of wisdom. 💕🙏💕
Thank you for this post. I struggle often with despair, and I do not understand what is happening to me. This post gives me a ray of light, a starting point to understand and formulate practical steps to counter the feeling of helplessness.
We need to go from knowledge of ourselves and God to relationship with God. They are not the same. Knowledge is the instruction manual. If we don’t implement it, it doesn’t do us any good. Actual dependence on God is required, and not just reading about it (see 1Peter 5:5-7; Philippians 4:6-7; James 4:5-10).
The knowledge of which St. Catherine writes about so often is knowledge of the heart, not of the head. They are not the same. Reading with the heart is reading prayerfully and with one's whole mind, one's whole soul; the words then penetrate the heart with an infusion of Divine grace, rather than residing in the intellect alone, where knowledge will grown stale and wither.
Our God-given facilities aren't separate; we can read for information and with the heart both. When the information we receive with our minds sinks deep into our hearts in its theological and mystical truth, it certainly then becomes a prayer. Quite often, the reading then propels one to sink into a deeper contemplative prayer beyond the words, thereby making the words themselves a sort of diving board into more profound prayer. This is all, of course, according to the grace of God coupled with our authentic desire for a deeper relationship with Christ.
My point was that diving into the more profound is the performing of an act of the will to draw close to God, when we are willing to do it. Receiving grace from God requires us to make the first move toward God regardless of whether He prompts it in the background. We don’t need to hope for lightening to hit us.
Is that last quote (between the blue line) your or hers? I love it- it hits the nail on the head and I want to give proper credit!! ❤️
All quotes between the blue lines are St. Catherine’s. The one that doesn’t mention the source is from the same letter as the quote above it. St. Catherine is a wellspring of wisdom. 💕🙏💕
Thank you for this post. I struggle often with despair, and I do not understand what is happening to me. This post gives me a ray of light, a starting point to understand and formulate practical steps to counter the feeling of helplessness.
We need to go from knowledge of ourselves and God to relationship with God. They are not the same. Knowledge is the instruction manual. If we don’t implement it, it doesn’t do us any good. Actual dependence on God is required, and not just reading about it (see 1Peter 5:5-7; Philippians 4:6-7; James 4:5-10).
The knowledge of which St. Catherine writes about so often is knowledge of the heart, not of the head. They are not the same. Reading with the heart is reading prayerfully and with one's whole mind, one's whole soul; the words then penetrate the heart with an infusion of Divine grace, rather than residing in the intellect alone, where knowledge will grown stale and wither.
When you read prayerfully, do you regard the reading as a prayer instead of reading for information?
Our God-given facilities aren't separate; we can read for information and with the heart both. When the information we receive with our minds sinks deep into our hearts in its theological and mystical truth, it certainly then becomes a prayer. Quite often, the reading then propels one to sink into a deeper contemplative prayer beyond the words, thereby making the words themselves a sort of diving board into more profound prayer. This is all, of course, according to the grace of God coupled with our authentic desire for a deeper relationship with Christ.
My point was that diving into the more profound is the performing of an act of the will to draw close to God, when we are willing to do it. Receiving grace from God requires us to make the first move toward God regardless of whether He prompts it in the background. We don’t need to hope for lightening to hit us.