Yes, what Jesus taught what was the simple and only what was necessary, no less and no more. It is the "more" part, where some feel compelled to add incessantly to His teachings, that our biggest trouble begins. In midlife, I became aware one day while in Contemplation of God that these additions to the teachings of Christ constitute the origin of the need for the word "scrupulous" in our language. Jesus' teachings are so simple in fact that the number of astute theologians and scholars of the day rendered unnecessary by this fact and were numbered among the original twelve chosen by our Savior, was really quite small. And yet His teachings remain so profoundly engaging that many centuries later they still keep an army of our best and brightest scholars and theologians "off the Street".
I was fortunate that when I first learned to pray in early childhood that as I did so I was invited to look deeply into the eyes of God. The expression on His Face was absolutely stunning for a kid who had only recently begun His parental Catholic instruction. I soon foolishly, according to my adult mentors, concluded that this sort of an encounter with God was what should be expected to occur when we pray. I still retain this foolish notion today. Doesn't observation of the expression on the face of another speak volumes with impeccable precision about their sentiments, dispositions, and conclusions, and do so often without need for even a word to pass between us? How much more is this true of our God, if He is actually the God that we propose that He is.
Later in life, after much rebellion against God and resulting in much travail, I finally became aware of what this supposedly ignorant state into which I, and a great many other Catholics and Saints had apparently fallen into actually was. This was what I now recognized was a actually a growing reliance upon God to speak for Himself, often without need for surrogates or surrogate sources and in any manner He chose. This hardly means that the result of any of these encounters in any way supersede a word of genuine Church teaching, doctrine, or the writings of Scripture. I have never found even one conflict. Silently attending at the feet of our Father, observant of His expression while immersed in our unique mutual union with Him, defines for us all of these and much, much more with the unimaginably perfect and complete precision that can reside in and proceed only from within in God. He has seemed to express Himself at times in words, but far more commonly I have found without need for them at all since what exists in the Person and mind of God defies, even with the most meager expectations, description in any human language. I have to conclude that constraining ourselves to the inadequacies of written or spoken language alone in our expectations of how we may be mentored by God seems wholly inadequate and foolish. The words of Scripture most often require the evaluation of others anyway for their meaning to become fully known and clear to the ignorant. Being one of those myself, I thought "why not simply employ the wisdom and evaluation of our God Who offers without constraint or qualification His immaculate knowledge to every one of us" For myself, I realized that I had been relying on knowledge imparted by God habitually since childhood anyway.
For anyone who cares, I have observed for 3/4 of a century now and as my life on earth appears to be winding down, that a moments observation of the expression on the face of God can easily reveal to even the most ignorant concerning the union between God and men in an an instant what multitudes of libraries have not been able to disclose to the most astute of our scholars over many millennia. Our God is not hidden at all, especially within our Church tradition. He is merely unrecognized all around and within us while pursuing us as if His very life depends upon our response. The only salient question for us now, I would say, is what are we going to do about this?
Yes, I think you are right. Saint Teresa of Avilla wrote of the importance of contemplating the humanity of Christ in her biography. Apparently, several people warned her against this practice, but she found that meditating on the physical Jesus was very helpful.
Thanks for that insight, Hudson. I would love to have a brief discussion sometime about the recommendation to anyone engagement of the practice of meditation. In my younger years I was somewhat of an adherent to the dispositions of Merton and De Chardin, both of whom I had to later reject their convictions. Merton, near the end of His life professed dispositions disavowing not only Catholic teaching, but Christian teaching as well and it seemed clear the practice of meditation paved the way.
Yeah, I used to read Merton in my teens but stopped when I began to learn about Catholicism. I believe he went full Buddhist eventually. Here a link to a free online copy of that book, if you want to see what she wrote https://archive.org/details/the-life-of-saint-teresa-of-jesus-by-herself
Thanks much for that link. I admit that I have always been compelled to avoid reading the works and biographies of mystics due to the often extremely unique nature of these individual's participation in their own Sainthood, unless of course someone like you sticks one of these delightful accounts under my nose.
Without yet having read the book, I don't know if you wish to carry this discussion on a bit but the "physical Jesus" remark brought back what was for me a stunning revelation concerning the nature and ambitions of our Triune God. Over many years I was mentored ever more precisely on how I was to pray at the feet of our Father as the disposition of my prayer became increasingly more contemplative. On one occasion, in the Scripture passage where Jesus reveals in answer to an inquiry as to what is the "greatest commandment of the law", I became aware of a dillema I never knew I had. There it was before me that I was being commanded in part to love passionately, and in a truly unqualified manner, each of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. I realized in that moment that my love for the God who actually IS God had always been based upon an image in my mind of my "physical" Father and my "physical" Savior. What really exposed me was the fact that I was required to apply through same regard to Our God the Holy spirit and couldn't in the same way for obvious reasons. I was a fraud.
When I approach God, I have always been taught by Him to do so silently, patiently, and above all in my rightful state of destitution. I await God empty of even and especially what I might consider to be the needs of my spiritual welfare, my spiritual concerns, and any other religious junk or baggage I may have attempted to bring along. When I pray, at His specific direction, I do so seeking only to attend and please Him no matter what the occasion for my approach to Him may otherwise may be. Exposing the mythical images of God I had manufactured in NY mind, or acquired over the years from elsewhere, were the apparent concerns that day. I was fully aware that it was God Himself that brought me to this place and I needed to do or say nothing and just attend Him as always.
Over the next months, each of my Holy Benefactors presented Himself individually, stayed with me, and directed my prayer. I was rightly compelled by my awareness of a truly unimaginable communion with the Others such that their consummately prefect unity rendered them to be one God seamlessly. As Each one presented Himself over succeeding weeks, the first was our Father, followed weeks later by our Savior, and then by our God the Holy Spirit months later. What developed in me for Each One was that without need any imagining or Imagery at all, I became passionately in love with Each of the Three over that time. Without need or even room for any evaluation at all, I was soon under the conviction that there is no love for one another by which humans are compelled that can even approximate the love of the members of our God possible and awaiting us in our destiny of Sainthood. Since then, I have always felt that "visionaries" who receive even the most compelling images are nearly always somewhat handicapped by them since imagery always requires interpretation and evaluation where the vision of God without imagery requires none and the immersion of one's spiritual in that of God reveals Him in an unimaginably precise and compelling manner where attempts at further Interpetation would be useless
It was this months long encounter that allowed me to finally fall in love with a God that is real, not because I could see Him, but because now there was and is no need. To what extent comtemplation of the "physical" Jesus can be actually helpful for others I cannot say. For me such dispositions of contemplation would only misled and diverted me from the encounter with the genuine members of our one true God. What I can say is that without knowing, I was being constrained, according to God Himself, to that which denied me the ability to love fully and embrace passionately each of the Beloved individual Members or our one true God and to be loved, and honored, and adored in impeccable truth was apparently all He was after from me which is now my deepest and most magnificent pleasure.
Yes, what Jesus taught what was the simple and only what was necessary, no less and no more. It is the "more" part, where some feel compelled to add incessantly to His teachings, that our biggest trouble begins. In midlife, I became aware one day while in Contemplation of God that these additions to the teachings of Christ constitute the origin of the need for the word "scrupulous" in our language. Jesus' teachings are so simple in fact that the number of astute theologians and scholars of the day rendered unnecessary by this fact and were numbered among the original twelve chosen by our Savior, was really quite small. And yet His teachings remain so profoundly engaging that many centuries later they still keep an army of our best and brightest scholars and theologians "off the Street".
I was fortunate that when I first learned to pray in early childhood that as I did so I was invited to look deeply into the eyes of God. The expression on His Face was absolutely stunning for a kid who had only recently begun His parental Catholic instruction. I soon foolishly, according to my adult mentors, concluded that this sort of an encounter with God was what should be expected to occur when we pray. I still retain this foolish notion today. Doesn't observation of the expression on the face of another speak volumes with impeccable precision about their sentiments, dispositions, and conclusions, and do so often without need for even a word to pass between us? How much more is this true of our God, if He is actually the God that we propose that He is.
Later in life, after much rebellion against God and resulting in much travail, I finally became aware of what this supposedly ignorant state into which I, and a great many other Catholics and Saints had apparently fallen into actually was. This was what I now recognized was a actually a growing reliance upon God to speak for Himself, often without need for surrogates or surrogate sources and in any manner He chose. This hardly means that the result of any of these encounters in any way supersede a word of genuine Church teaching, doctrine, or the writings of Scripture. I have never found even one conflict. Silently attending at the feet of our Father, observant of His expression while immersed in our unique mutual union with Him, defines for us all of these and much, much more with the unimaginably perfect and complete precision that can reside in and proceed only from within in God. He has seemed to express Himself at times in words, but far more commonly I have found without need for them at all since what exists in the Person and mind of God defies, even with the most meager expectations, description in any human language. I have to conclude that constraining ourselves to the inadequacies of written or spoken language alone in our expectations of how we may be mentored by God seems wholly inadequate and foolish. The words of Scripture most often require the evaluation of others anyway for their meaning to become fully known and clear to the ignorant. Being one of those myself, I thought "why not simply employ the wisdom and evaluation of our God Who offers without constraint or qualification His immaculate knowledge to every one of us" For myself, I realized that I had been relying on knowledge imparted by God habitually since childhood anyway.
For anyone who cares, I have observed for 3/4 of a century now and as my life on earth appears to be winding down, that a moments observation of the expression on the face of God can easily reveal to even the most ignorant concerning the union between God and men in an an instant what multitudes of libraries have not been able to disclose to the most astute of our scholars over many millennia. Our God is not hidden at all, especially within our Church tradition. He is merely unrecognized all around and within us while pursuing us as if His very life depends upon our response. The only salient question for us now, I would say, is what are we going to do about this?
Yes, I think you are right. Saint Teresa of Avilla wrote of the importance of contemplating the humanity of Christ in her biography. Apparently, several people warned her against this practice, but she found that meditating on the physical Jesus was very helpful.
Thanks for that insight, Hudson. I would love to have a brief discussion sometime about the recommendation to anyone engagement of the practice of meditation. In my younger years I was somewhat of an adherent to the dispositions of Merton and De Chardin, both of whom I had to later reject their convictions. Merton, near the end of His life professed dispositions disavowing not only Catholic teaching, but Christian teaching as well and it seemed clear the practice of meditation paved the way.
Yeah, I used to read Merton in my teens but stopped when I began to learn about Catholicism. I believe he went full Buddhist eventually. Here a link to a free online copy of that book, if you want to see what she wrote https://archive.org/details/the-life-of-saint-teresa-of-jesus-by-herself
Thanks much for that link. I admit that I have always been compelled to avoid reading the works and biographies of mystics due to the often extremely unique nature of these individual's participation in their own Sainthood, unless of course someone like you sticks one of these delightful accounts under my nose.
Without yet having read the book, I don't know if you wish to carry this discussion on a bit but the "physical Jesus" remark brought back what was for me a stunning revelation concerning the nature and ambitions of our Triune God. Over many years I was mentored ever more precisely on how I was to pray at the feet of our Father as the disposition of my prayer became increasingly more contemplative. On one occasion, in the Scripture passage where Jesus reveals in answer to an inquiry as to what is the "greatest commandment of the law", I became aware of a dillema I never knew I had. There it was before me that I was being commanded in part to love passionately, and in a truly unqualified manner, each of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. I realized in that moment that my love for the God who actually IS God had always been based upon an image in my mind of my "physical" Father and my "physical" Savior. What really exposed me was the fact that I was required to apply through same regard to Our God the Holy spirit and couldn't in the same way for obvious reasons. I was a fraud.
When I approach God, I have always been taught by Him to do so silently, patiently, and above all in my rightful state of destitution. I await God empty of even and especially what I might consider to be the needs of my spiritual welfare, my spiritual concerns, and any other religious junk or baggage I may have attempted to bring along. When I pray, at His specific direction, I do so seeking only to attend and please Him no matter what the occasion for my approach to Him may otherwise may be. Exposing the mythical images of God I had manufactured in NY mind, or acquired over the years from elsewhere, were the apparent concerns that day. I was fully aware that it was God Himself that brought me to this place and I needed to do or say nothing and just attend Him as always.
Over the next months, each of my Holy Benefactors presented Himself individually, stayed with me, and directed my prayer. I was rightly compelled by my awareness of a truly unimaginable communion with the Others such that their consummately prefect unity rendered them to be one God seamlessly. As Each one presented Himself over succeeding weeks, the first was our Father, followed weeks later by our Savior, and then by our God the Holy Spirit months later. What developed in me for Each One was that without need any imagining or Imagery at all, I became passionately in love with Each of the Three over that time. Without need or even room for any evaluation at all, I was soon under the conviction that there is no love for one another by which humans are compelled that can even approximate the love of the members of our God possible and awaiting us in our destiny of Sainthood. Since then, I have always felt that "visionaries" who receive even the most compelling images are nearly always somewhat handicapped by them since imagery always requires interpretation and evaluation where the vision of God without imagery requires none and the immersion of one's spiritual in that of God reveals Him in an unimaginably precise and compelling manner where attempts at further Interpetation would be useless
It was this months long encounter that allowed me to finally fall in love with a God that is real, not because I could see Him, but because now there was and is no need. To what extent comtemplation of the "physical" Jesus can be actually helpful for others I cannot say. For me such dispositions of contemplation would only misled and diverted me from the encounter with the genuine members of our one true God. What I can say is that without knowing, I was being constrained, according to God Himself, to that which denied me the ability to love fully and embrace passionately each of the Beloved individual Members or our one true God and to be loved, and honored, and adored in impeccable truth was apparently all He was after from me which is now my deepest and most magnificent pleasure.
While I am by no means a mystic, I think you will enjoy reading Saint Teresa's book. What you say is very much like what she wrote.
Me either but thank you soooo much.