Addendum 7...the non-addendum...


Simply a final entry asking pardon for posts whipped out on only a little cell phone, the important ones done in only a handful of days, and no few posts might have been skipped entire, as well as assorted text actually edited, but will let it all stand, it is what it is.


My only hope and prayer is that these entries prod any reader to discover for themselves the truth of, "And now there remain faith, hope and charity (love), these three: but the greatest of these is charity (love)".

 

Popular posts from this blog

Addendum 4...The Afterlife

Image
  and the chasing thereof...almost a year and half since last post, and really cannot add anything to the subject of the interior life and union with God not said far better by cited authors, nor can I add anything to the nature of the problems and solutions to what goes on in this always passing away world. But, we can have some fun with highly speculative talk as to the nature of eternity, and our place in it, whether for good or bad. The bad news first, as somewhat mentioned prior, is that if we cut ourselves off in this life from the love of the creator who upholds all of creation every nano-second through love for it and us, then we doom ourselves to an eternity cut off from God and creation, and exist in eternity same as this life, utterly fixated on self and its defects for all eternity, hating perfection since it is NOT us, and self-consuming for all eternity, and those are the happier aspects. We have from scripture that the self-sacrifice of the Christ is ever present bef...
Read more

Addendum 5...On the writings/translations of St. John of the Cross...

Image
 and the difficulties they can present to readers. Again, St. John of the Cross was a true spiritual master who dove deeply into the ways we delude ourselves and risk a false spirituality unless these falsehoods eliminated. The problem for readers is the archaic Spanish of florid style, including for modern native Spanish speakers. I recently had an internet discussion in a comment section with a seeker who gushed over a particular translation published by the Carmelite Studies house, so with great interest I looked into this translation. I already had a bad feeling about it, as the seeker praised how it lacked the cloying sweetness of so many translations....I was polite enough to only thank them for the resource while refraining from saying that Castilian Spanish WAS sickeningly sweet and flowery, IF accurately translated, and lacking that, it is not a translation but, instead, an edited rewrite. Looking up the information on the Carmelite translators (Fathers Kieran Kavanaugh an...
Read more

Nuts and bolts of mystic/contemplative prayer, versus...(#4)

Image
 "normal" prayer. And which really is misleading, as each blends seamlessly with the other. There are active lives and there are contemplative lives, with infinite shades between them. The same goes for active prayer and contemplative mystic prayer. But, in a nutshell, active prayer ("normal" as most understand the word "prayer") is an action undertaken by the self and uses the intellect. Catholics would say there is mental/meditation prayer as opposed to contemplative prayer. In active prayer, there is a self who performs actions, an intellect which ruminates over meanings and feelings, or dutifully recites rote prayers or readings while reflecting upon their personal import, and reflects upon what God might mean or want us to know. If you think about it, it is rather hard to know what anybody at all wants, if you do not know them at all.  Contemplative/mystic prayer is the seeking of a direct experience of God without use of the discursive intellect. As ...
Read more