contemplation(0/4)
Defining emotional health and contemplative spirituality
Emotional Health naming, recognizing, and managing our own feelings identifying with and having active compassion for others initiating and maintaining close and meaningful relationships breaking free from self-destructive patterns being aware of how our past impacts our present developing the capacity to express our thoughts and feelings clearly, both verbally and nonverbally respecting and loving others without having to change them asking for what we need, want, or prefer clearly, directly, and respectfully accurately self-assessing our strengths, limits, and weaknesses and freely sharing them with others learning the capacity to resolve conflict maturely and negotiate solutions that consider the perspectives of others distinguishing and appropriately expressing our sexuality and sensuality grieving well Contemplative Spirituality awakening and surrendering to God’s love in any and every situation positioning ourselves to hear God and remember his presence in all we do communing with God, allowing him to fully indwell the depth of our being practicing silence, solitude, and a life of unceasing prayer resting attentively in the presence of God understanding our earthly life as a journey of transformation toward ever-increasing union with God finding the true essence of who we are in God loving others out of a life of love for God developing a balanced, harmonious rhythm of life that enables us to be aware of the sacred in all of life adapting historic practices of spirituality that are applicable today allowing our Christian lives to be shaped by the rhythms of the Christian calendar rather than the culture living in committed community that passionately loves Jesus above all else
Contemplation is no escape from anguish
Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding. For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial “doubt.”
To become myself I must cease to be what I thought I wanted to be
In order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted to be, and in order to find myself I must go out of myself, and in order to live I have to die. The reason for this is that I am born in selfishness and therefore my natural efforts to make myself more real and more myself, make me less real and less myself, because they revolve around a lie.…
There is only one vocation
This means, in practice, that there is only one vocation. Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married or single, no matter who you are or what you are, you are called to the summit of perfection: you are called to a deep interior life perhaps even to mystical prayer, and to pass the fruits of your contemplation on to others.…