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 [...]
Just as the joy I have on account of the good of my friend depends on how much I love that friend, so too is that the case with the saints. To be closer friends with the saints, we must grow in our love for the saints, and then we will be able to share [...]
Love draws you up, but it does not sweep you off your feet. Not yet. Charity paradoxically manages to give you both heaven and earth. Jesus, Paul, and indeed all Christians, keep their sights high and their feet firmly planted. Saint Paul can catch you off guard. Just when you think you have a grip [...]
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 [...]
I had not seen my former student, Adam, for a decade or so after his graduation from Hillsdale College when I ran into him and his young family at the supermarket. "You once asked me" he said, "for what purpose was the soul of man made. I had little in the way of an answer [...]
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 [...]
God’s perfect love casts out all fear when we hand ourselves over to him in hope. Why tremble? Why hesitate? When all that can be desired is offered by the one who is powerful to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine. Change is scary. Between the unknowns we can foresee and those [...]
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 [...]
Today, threatened by the new barbarism and the new paganism, we would be wise to postpone speculative reasoning and look to Thomas Aquinas for his example of true reverence before the Holy Eucharist, concentration and recollection in prayer, perfect obedience, love of poverty, and passion for sacred music. The Story A few months before his [...]
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 [...]