The Joys and Challenges of a Solitary Life

[Therese]

Hi Whiterockdove!  I didn't receive a notification of your penultimate post but today received a notification of your last post.  Thanks for posting these quotes of St. Therese and the aspirations!  It is good for me to remember the Little Way of St. Therese, so I don't make my spiritual life more complicated than it has to be.  Devotion to Blessed Mary and Spiritual childhood are both very key in the spiritual life, no?  With the Blessed Mother and the Little Way to help us we should be very happy.  Thanks for reminding me with the St. Therese quotes that salvation can be more easily attained by means of spiritual childhood.  I need to always remember that Blessed Mary, abandonment to divine Providence and spiritual childhood will certainly help me get to heaven.  We all must focus on Blessed Mary, on being conformed to the divine Will and on being little, so that our salvation will be more easily attained.  God bless you!

[whiterockdove]

You are so welcome, Therese
I will continue to post, although  in a rather sporadic way.  Its hard to get time on the keyboard
We only have one and I encourage my husband to use it whenever he wants.
Its good for him to do these things; keeping his brain engaged and active!
Prayers for you, always, my friend!

[Therese]

"The little way is one of spiritual childhood, of confidence and complete self abandonment."
--St. Therese of the Child Jesus

[Therese]

You are so welcome, Therese
I will continue to post, although  in a rather sporadic way.  Its hard to get time on the keyboard
We only have one and I encourage my husband to use it whenever he wants.
Its good for him to do these things; keeping his brain engaged and active!
Prayers for you, always, my friend!

Please know that I am praying for you and your husband, and for your Aunt Peggy.  I pray for a happy ending to Peggy's life, one of saving grace and salvation.  God bless you!

[whiterockdove]

Thank you, Therese. Here is a prayer off a lovely old holy card I found in the free box of a church somewhere.  It is of St. Joseph as an old man holding the Baby Jesus.

PRAYER FOR A HAPPY DEATH

Father,
when You are ready to lead me through death to eternal life,
be with me as You were
with Your people of old.
As the last breath
of life pours from me,
take away all fear and
let me embrace You with joy.
Give me the grace to die,
as did St. Joseph,
with Jesus and Mary at my side.
Amen.

[Therese]

Thank you, Therese. Here is a prayer off a lovely old holy card I found in the free box of a church somewhere.  It is of St. Joseph as an old man holding the Baby Jesus.

PRAYER FOR A HAPPY DEATH

Father,
when You are ready to lead me through death to eternal life,
be with me as You were
with Your people of old.
As the last breath
of life pours from me,
take away all fear and
let me embrace You with joy.
Give me the grace to die,
as did St. Joseph,
with Jesus and Mary at my side.
Amen.

Beautiful prayer!  Thanks for sharing it, Whiterockdove!

[whiterockdove]

Here's an aspiration for today;

Tell us, are you the One
Who is to come?

[whiterockdove]

Here's a nice Advent hymn:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessings in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of Kings. Yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads it's vanguard on the way
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the power of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six winged seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry,

Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

[Therese]

One of my favorites, Whiterockdove!  But I believe it is a French Christmas hymn.

[Therese]

I had to edit my last post.

Here is a beautiful saying of St. John of the Cross:

"Love to be unknown both by yourself and by others.  Never look at the good or evil of others."

I wish there were some commentary that would tell me exactly what it means to love to be unknown to oneself, given that self-knowledge is supposed to bring one to a greater knowledge of God.

[Shin]

Let all mortal flesh keep silence!

[whiterockdove]

Here's an aspiration for today;

"O Lord, I have heard your renown,
And feared, O Lord, your work."

[Shin]

What a beautiful aspiration!

I shall say it throughout the day!

[whiterockdove]

Here's an aspiration for today;

Mother of Christ
Hear, Thou, Thy people's cry!

[Shin]

Here is a passage from St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier on Pryaer, from her 'Conferences and Instructions' on Saints' Books.

'God, says St Teresa, only bestows His favours on a soul when she humbles herself and applies herself to recollection, considering herself as nothing. This great saint, raised to the highest degree of contemplation, possessed deep humility, proportionate to the great favours bestowed on her by God. By the light she received in prayer, her smallest imperfections were clear to her, so that she believed she was always accumulating ingratitude upon ingratitude, sin upon sin, and she complained to Our Lord that He punished her infidelities only by new graces. It is true, however, that during more than fifteen years she suffered from such desolation in prayer that it would, she said, have cost her less to go to martyrdom than to recollect herself for meditation. She found the time of prayer so long that she often shook the hourglass beside her. Sometimes she found herself, instead of praying, counting the panes of glass in the windows, and examining the tiles on the chapel floor, and worse than all this, the devil persuaded her that she was too great a sinner to meditate, and that it was sufficient for her to recite the office and pray vocally. So when the hour for meditation arrived, she sometimes went and hid herself at the bottom of the garden, to thus escape from Our Lord, yet feeling withal great sorrow at being at a distance from the Beloved of her soul. She finally spoke to her confessor of the temptation, who pointed out to her the snare which the spirit of evil had laid for her ruin. She listened to his holy counsels and resolved never to abandon the exercise of meditation, but to be faithful to it till death at any cost. In times of dryness she often said to God: "Lord, the more Thou hidest Thyself from me, the more will I seek Thee; the more Thou dost fly from me, the more will I hasten after Thee." Sometimes she had recourse to a book and found relief.

You must do likewise, my dear daughters; the more Our Lord appears to retire from you, the more should you seek Him with affectionate persever ance, without yielding to negligence or sleep, but making holy aspirations from your heart as our Spiritual Directory suggests, following the attraction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, making use also of the good books and of the excellent methods taught you. Moreover, you will find by experience that we only learn to meditate well by meditating. For this reason when the disciples of St. John of the Cross requested him to instruct them how to meditate, he usually replied: "Meditate. Go and make a meditation." As for myself, I, too, feel inclined to say the same when I am questioned on the point.

Prayer is a private audience granted to us by God in which He manifests Himself to us to shower His graces upon us; but believe me, my dear daughters, no one can initiate you into this secret communing of the soul with God, no one can teach you this secret converse of the creature with its Creator. To you it belongs to beg God with all earnestness that He wrould teach you to converse with Him, and it is to you to strive to make your selves worthy to receive this grace. Prepare your self constantly for prayer by great fidelity to your duties, then in all simplicity present yourself be fore our Divine Saviour. Hearken to His voice when He speaks to your heart and when He tells you to correct certain faults or suggests certain sacrifices. Ask His pardon for your faults, thank Him for His innumerable benefits, beg new graces for yourself, for your neighbour, for your sisters labouring in our missions. Exercise your understanding, memory and will, as much as possible, and above all excite in your heart sentiments of love, gratitude and generosity. In a word, your prayer should be a prayer of zeal, of abnegation and of sacrifice; a prayer as fervent and persevering when God leaves you in dryness, as when He consoles you with His ineffable spiritual consolations.'

[Therese]

Without daily mental prayer how could one's days be considered good?