It was after about eighteen months of perseverance that something quite dramatic happened. Not only that but it was quite evident to me that it was not the “numinous” that I was experiencing, but it was God, at least the experience of his love that was enveloping me. The whole atmosphere at the student house [...]
Without any human help, it was my own desperate need to find God that enabled me to persevere in the Dark Night in which I found myself when first fervour left me flat. However, in case I give the impression that first fervour is of little consequence and can easily be bypassed, this is not [...]
At first, contemplation is called dark or confused contemplation because our heart’s desire needs to be purified and refined in many months, if not years, before the Love of God becomes tangible. Then, renewal is on the way as the Holy Spirit comes to those whose patience and perseverance in adversity enables them to receive [...]
The priest or religious who takes a vow of Chastity, binding them to Christ as to their spiritual married partner, will be lost without daily access to the contemplation that is for them the indispensable means of uniting them with him. From the very beginning, the faithful have been taught that the Church is the [...]
Making the spiritual ascent into God is rather like trying to run up a downward escalator. The moment you stop moving steadily forwards is the moment when you start moving steadily downward. Going forwards means finding daily time to do what St Peter told his listeners to do when he was the first to announce [...]
Learning to love is more important than anything else because it guarantees the happiness that nothing else can. That is why the whole of the spiritual life and the mystic way is dedicated to teaching how love can be learned, sustained and perfected. I once attended a conference titled “The Moral Malaise” during which the [...]
What happens to the muscles of our bodies can happen to the muscles of our hearts too. This can happen with ever greater intensity when spiritual weightlifting is practised in prayer, in the mystic way. The difference between conversion and repentance is so important that it needs further explanation. I hope to do this by [...]
In this book I am not just trying to view God’s Plan, but our personal and unique part in it. God can only enable us to participate in his plan to the degree to which we are prepared to respond to his call as the Apostles did, and those who radically chose to follow him [...]
Without returning to the prayer and the spirituality of our forefathers, the Church has seemed to have gradually deteriorated at every level. However, I am now witnessing the many who are beginning to see the truth. They are beginning to see and do what can alone bring personal renewal, and Church renewal, by generating and [...]
After the Second Vatican Council, not only were mystics and saints all but absent, but so also were the sort of new and vital religious orders to help spread and disseminate the teachings of the Council. However, as history has shown, pendulums do swing. St John Henry Newman’s “New Spring” is at last on the [...]
Why did the introduction of the new liturgy not bring about the long-anticipated renewal for which we were all longing? Without the deep personal relationship with Christ that develops and grows in personal prayer, the liturgy can soon become ineffective, not in itself, but in those who are not prepared to receive it. Many of [...]
By prayer, I do not just mean saying prayers or performing prayers of obligation but practising the deep prayer that leads onward beyond first beginnings into the mystic way. It is only here that we will come to know and experience the love that surpasses the understanding. When the constitution on the liturgy was promulgated [...]
Without contemplation, St. Thomas Aquinas’ "Summa Theologica" is seen as a great stained-glass window, but from the outside. But with contemplation, his masterwork is seen, as if from the inside, iridescent with all the brilliance with which he was able to write, thanks to the Holy Spirit who guided his every word and his every [...]
Quietism in all its different manifestations seemed to encourage the reformer’s belief that our own efforts are useless and even blasphemous. Its adherents were not only encouraged to do absolutely nothing in prayer, but to do nothing about temptations either, that could only be overcome with God’s grace. Miguel de Molinos Molinos, the [...]