THE BURNING HEART THE DEVOTIONAL EXPERIENCE
Introduction
From Paris, France, over 300 years ago, on October 29, 1689, 173 years after Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany, a little, old, withered, and wrinkled French monk, a lay-brother, wrote a letter of spiritual counsel to a married lady as follows:
Remember, I beg you, what I have recommended to you, which is to think often of God, by day, by night, in all your pursuits and duties; even during your recreations. He is always near you and with you; do not leave Him alone. You would think it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you. Why abandon God and leave Him alone: Then do not forget Him Think of Him often, adore Him continually, live and die with Him; that is the glorious business of a Christian; in a word, it is our calling; if we do not know that calling we must learn it.
A few years ago I discovered Nicolas Herman for myself. Nicholas Herman lived from 1611-1691 in France. Past middle life, after having served many years as a soldier, he joined as a lay brother the barefooted Carmelites, the monastic order which gave us Teresa of Avila, designated by Urban T. Holmes in his History of Christian Spirituality as "the healthiest human who ever lived," St. John of the Cross, who produced the famous and fascinating little work, The Dark Night of the Soul , and Therese of Lisieux whose autobiography, Story of A Soul, was a most significant inspiration for our contemporary Mother Teresa.
Nicholas was assigned to the kitchen. There, in his own words, he was "a clumsy fellow who broke everything." His lowly tasks were at first very distasteful to him. But he began to accept them all as God's will for him and gradually gained the great insight which he later so gladly taught to others--that God is present even in the most commonplace of circumstances. His whole life was spent among the pots and kettles as "a servant of the servants of God."
In that humble setting he so "steadily grew in favor with God and men" that in his later years he was sought out for his spiritual counsel by many of the prominent churchmen of Paris. After his death, notes from some of his conversations plus some of his letters were published in a thin volume entitled The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection.
From that day to this, over three hundred years later, this little book has been translated into many languages and reprinted again and again. Circulated around the world this sparse volume has been prized by Catholics and Protestants alike. It is still in print in several English editions, as well as in other languages. The Institute of Carmelite Studies has recently produced a critical edition including all that is known about his life and the manuscripts.
Bernhard Christensen, in The Inward Pilgrimage: Spiritual Classics from Augustine to Bonhoeffer, writes concerning the book that "a chief secret of its popularity is the unadorned beauty of Brother Lawrence's own life which clearly shines through its simple pages."
A little obscure man in a hidden role--yet his life has challenged thousands across the centuries, high and low, in the church and in the world--and he has inspired me to believe that if he could have an effective witness for Christ, there is hope for me.
Brother Lawrence, an uneducated lay-brother in a monastery kitchen in medieval France, convinced me as never before that the strength of my devotional discipline is the strength of my Christian witness in the world! That is, my authenticity as a Christian in the world flows from the integrity of my devotional life. So I have done some reflecting about what I designate the experience of the burning heart, my strength as a Christian, out of which I am sharing with you today.
In the 24th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, following the account of the resurrection of Jesus, comes the story of the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus with whom the risen Lord began to walk and talk. When their conversation concludes, and Jesus departs from them, they reflect on what has happened and the disciples say to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?"
This text, which contains the secret of keeping Pentecost as a continuing reality in our lives, furnishes us with a paradigm or picture of the devotional experience--the essential elements are all present. The verbs—“burning . . . speaking . . . explaining” are crucial, as we shall see
From this text we speak of the burning heart: the devotional experience, “what is it,” and “how do we go about itsconduct”?.
So first,
THE “WHAT” OF THE BURNING HEART
Our basic question is, “what does constitute a meaningful devotional life"? What is it we are talking about in this area that all will admit is so crucial for our spiritual lives, yet so few of us feel we are truly succeeding in it? And to answer this question is also to answer the “Why” question.
I believe the graced privilege of a meaningful devotional life can be defined in a fundamental way from two related perspectives, (1) a remembering experience, and as (2) a renewing experience.
So first the devotional life is
I. "a remembering" experience
It is a time when and a place where we take time "to remember"! We make space for "remembrance": The way the disciples on the Emmaus road put it, it was, "while He was explaining the Scriptures to us” that their hearts began to burn within them.
Our "Scriptures" are the inspired memory of the people of God. And as we read them we discover that "memory" or "remembering" is a vital element in biblical faith.
A. This was particularly vivid in the faith of the Old Testament people.
(1) We see this most clearly in the Psalmist for whom "remembrance is revival for the downcast. It is the means whereby spiritual vitality and joy in God are re-created" (G. Henton Davies).
Listen to the 42nd Psalm which reads in part:
As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?
[But]
My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"
[We all have days like that when "Wo ist Gott?” (1959). Days when God is absent! Cf. Job, "I looked . . ."]
[But now the Psalmist, having remembered the past deeds and presence of God in the land, declares . . .]
0 my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore (the Hebrew is 'al-ken, a strong, unambiguous, on purpose word!) I remember You from the land of the Jordan, And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
[Then he testifies to the result of his remembering .]
Deep calls to deep at the sound of Thy waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.
The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life (vv. 1-3, 6-8).
When we do take time to remember the Lord will "command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night"!
(2) Another text which shows us the value of memory for biblical faith is Deuteronomy 6:4-6, that greatest of all Old Testament passages--a call to covenant renewal, the great text of the Judeo-Christian faith, that reads
"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! "And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. "And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.”
This is the OT Text of OT texts! The Jewish Shema, that is at the heart of the worship of the Jewish people to this day. All pious Jews have it in a mezuzzah placed on the door frame of their house or business. This text Jesus fulfilled in himself that we might be set free to live it out. Of the words of this great commandment Moses writes: "And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
The "heart" in biblical psychology is the whole person thinking and willing, the seat of a person’s spiritual and intellectual life, the inner nature of a person. It is “a comprehensive term for personality as a whole, its inner life, its character.” So here in Deuteronomy the "heart" speaks of the truth of God remembered in the mind, activating the will, and informing our actions.
(3) Moses in verses 20-21ff. Goes on to declare
“When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What do the testimonies and the statures [basically the ten commandment] mean which the LORD commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out with a mighty hand’” (see vv. 23-25).
Biblically to "remember" the past is to transform the present. One Old Testament scholar tells us that
The biblical command to “remember” (Deut. 8:14; 9:27f.) was not a casual recommendation of a mental exercise but a participation in a past made present
And another writes,
the Hebrew notion . . . signifies a bringing into the present of a chronologically past act with all its original efficacy, a literal “re-calling” in the sense of calling back.”
In biblical perspective, for the people of God, the past becomes effective in the present through remembering--it is a spiritually re-creative process.
B. This is also most evident in the NT where “remembering” comes to its supreme fulfillment in the faith of the first Christians.
In our taking of the elements of the Lord's Supper, writes a contemporary biblical scholar (G. Henton Davies), we
Christians are to remember Jesus Christ, but it follows from this meal that the presence of Christ is not merely remembered but becomes a real presence through remembrance. Their remembrances thus are the medium for the holy reality of Jesus Christ, and in this holy reality the life of the Spirit is quickened and revived. Remembrance in religion always means revival.
At the Lord's table we hear the words,
"This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me ....
This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me" (1 Cor. 11:23-25).
So when we talk about the devotional life as a "remembering" experience we are talking about revival every morning! We can experience "daily revival" as we deliberately remember Jesus and by faith realize his presence, not necessarily feel—there is a difference! A highly important and crucial difference! . . .
(2) In the light of the biblical meaning of remembering the apostle Peter helps us understand our devotional life as a "remembering" experience:
Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you (2 Peter 1:12; cf. 3:1, and James 1:21).
It is remembering the things we already know! My mother used to admonish me as a young boy, “Remember you are my son,” when I was riding off on my horse to a neighbor’s ranch to spend the night. These neighbors were unchurched.
(4) As Brother Lawrence put it, "the presence of God is a remembrance of God present, which can be made either by the imagination or by the intellect." And this involves deliberate attention and time!
So not only are we talking about the devotional life as "a remembering experience, but also about the devotional life as
II. "a renewing" experience "Were not our hearts burning within us . . .?" was the language of the disciples. Biblically the language of fire speaks of the divine presence—A burning, judging, purifying, refining Presence!
We are reminded of the experience of Moses: “And the angel of the LORD appeared to him from the midst of a bush” (Exodus 3:2; cf. v. 4). “The burning bush reality” at the heart of our day! That is our privilege! The sublime truth is that “to consent to God’s presence is His Presence.” The saints tell me that prayer is a matter of “intention”!
To "remember" is at the same time inherently (biblically) to "renew"--to participate in a past made present. Through remembering, the covenant is renewed that God made with us in the cross of Jesus Christ, transforming the present moment. We renew our covenant, our personal relationship with God, as we take time to remember.
A. For remember, it is a "remembering" in the heart!
Here we come to the heart of the “Why” of the devotional life.
(1) In Proverbs 4:20-23 the wisdom writer, perhaps a father teaching his son, speaks loudly to us all:
My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart.
For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their whole body.
Watch over the heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life .
(2) An effective devotional life is to the life of faith like the ballast to an ocean going ship, unseen, but indispensable!
Thomas Merton writes that “the concept of ‘the heart’ . . . refers to the deepest psychological ground of one’s personality, the inner sanctuary where self-awareness goes beyond analytical reflection and opens out into metaphysical and theological confrontation with the Abyss of the unknown yet present—one who is ‘more intimate to us than we are to ourselves.’”
Remembering in the heart is more than rational knowing. It is knowing in the head undergirded by emotional or heart knowing--for that is where our "forgetter" is--not so much in our heads but down deep in those emotional structures of our persons out of which we act and react often without thinking (David! Think before you act! Fishing!).
For our hearts are the buckets with the holes in them where our truly Christian character first leaks out one drop at a time. I am talking about our inner psychic, emotional selves which bear in them the wounds of the history of our fallenness.
We can remember our creeds and codes in our heads, but we often forget who we really are in the sub-conscious, emotional levels of our personalities.
B. So it is imperative that I remember in the heart, to renew by remembering!
(1) What does it take for me to live out of the resources of the divine reality, out of the redemptive deed of the Christ of God all day long?
For the reality is that you and I actually have to live out in daily activity the life of Christ in the midst of fallen human structures—organized society and its institutions, including even the Church, and even more our own physical, mental, psychic, and emotional make-ups. We do live in a fallen world . Yes, to live out of and truly to live out in our lives the risen life of the crucified Christ takes more than a cognitive or a head once-for-all knowledge . . .You and I need daily heart and Spirit-charged reminders that we are those for whom Christ died! To remember that
It is enough to know that Jesus died, And that He died for me.
For the knowledge of who and what we are comes from reflection and meditation on our calling and destiny--on the central deed of our common faith, the cross and resurrection of Christ, the pattern of it all! This is one reason for displaying the cross in a prominent place in the church
After 54 (71--converted 1946) years as a Christian I am more convinced than ever that daily "remembering" is the only way I can even begin to succeed in living out my Christian value structures, that is, the cross-life, the life of the Sermon on the Mount, and the only way I can expect my life to be an effective reminder to others of the living presence of Christ.
Sure--without it I know how to succeed at moralistic or legalistic "Christian" living--I can believe my churches' creed and perform its code, but to always manifest a truly cross-like spirit in the crucial situations of my life can be at times quite a different story!
(2) One example--this continuous renewing of the psychic structures of our personalities, the emotional ballast of our living, in the presence and truth of Christ is our only sure protection against the careless word (did you ever regret . . . ? How many of us go even a week . . . ?) that Jesus warns us of in Matthew 12:33-37:
Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree rotten, and its fruit rotten; for the tree is known by its fruit.
You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.
The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil.
And I say to you, that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment.
For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.
Frightful words!
Richard Foster in his Celebration of Discipline shook me up when I first read his comments on the "careless word" years ago (1980?):
Willpower has no defense against the careless word, the unguarded moment. . . . The moment we feel we can succeed and attain victory over our sin by the strength of our will alone is the moment we are worshiping the will.
How often have I begun a new day promising myself, “I am not going to say anything today that I will regret when I pause to reflect on the day!" Often it only takes minutes—or even seconds--the Holy Spirit is faithful! Foster continues,
“Will worship” may be able to have an outward show of success for a time, but in the cracks and crevices of our lives, our deep inner condition will always be revealed.
I find this to be so true in my own life at times. . . . I cannot get myself really all together today, I am all out of sorts, but no one is going to suspect it, I think! But Foster concludes:
It is not that we intend to be that way. We have no intention of exploding with anger or of parading a sticky arrogance, but when we are with people, what we are comes out. [a caustic word . . . ]
As Jesus said, "For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart" (12:34).
Therefore,
Watch over the heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life" (Proverbs 4:23).
It is important first of all to discipline the inner life, for we act and speak out of what we are emotionally, psychically, thinkingly--down deep inside! I say what I really think more than I realize. Even in my humor my true spiritual condition is revealed! Analyze your humor sometime! “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” or “as he thinks within himself, so he is.”
So Watch the heart! Fill the heart!
One has said, “Prayer is the “practice of allowing a person’s heart to transform.”
So the necessity of a time and a place for contemplative prayer.
I am not sure what he means, but I like the Psalmist's exhortation,
Let your heart live forever! (22:26)
This day
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer (19:14).
They will be if I take time today to "remember," to watch my heart, for the Holy Spirit will renew me. He will fill my heart! This is what our devotional lives are all about, the awesome and exciting privilege of the experience of the burning heart. Now we can come to . . .
THE “HOW” OF THE BURNING HEART
Just “how” does one go about having a consistent and effective devotional life? How can I do it? Listen to the Scripture!
"Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?"
I. We can because the privilege is GIVEN!
A. The privilege is graced to use in a two-fold provision.
You and I can first because of the past fact of redemption: As the risen Christ asked the two disciples as they walked together on the road to Emmaus: “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” (24:26)
You and I can second because of the present reality of the living Christ: "while He [the risen Lord] was speaking to us on the road" was the testimony of the two disciples.
B. Here is the Christian’s privilege of empowered “remembering.”
“The biblical command to remember was . . . a participation in a past made present.” This is what faith does, what faith is for, the faith that you and I have in Jesus, crucified and risen, that he might live forever among us and in our lives!
Remembering = Renewal = the burning heart = the devotional experience!
I can because the privilege is given! Now to the practical “how” of an effective devotional life.
II. We can by the use of THE ONE book!
A. The Word that is alive!
(1) As Moses instructed the Israelites:
He humbled you by letting you hunger, than by feeding you with manna, with which neither your nor your ancestors were acquainted in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deut. 8:3).
As the disciples mused to one another:
"Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?"
John Wesley wrote:
I want to know one thing—the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way: for this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! I have it; here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri [a man of one book!].
The Bible is the book that is the speaking of God to us—we have it in our possession as “the mouth of the LORD”—a means of Grace!
Urban T. Holmes, an Episcopalian seminary Dean, now deceased, in Spirituality for Ministry, wrote:
The reading of the Scriptures is an act of coming face to face with the mystery of God, out of which we are addressed. This follows from the fact that the Scriptures are the memory of the church. It is as we enter into dialogue between the church's memory and our own memory and make the former our own at an even deeper level of our personal memory that we eventually stand before the mystery of God's presence. The Scriptures are not simply an external authority. Their power [inherent in their living relationship to the Holy Spirit] arises from their internal appropriation by the mind so that they might enrich our memory and draw us deeper into the process of discerning God's vision for us.
In a letter to a friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Christian martyred at Hitler’s orders just before World War II ended in 1945, wrote:
We cannot simply read the Bible like other books. We must be prepared really to listen to it. Only in this way is it revealed to us. . . . The reason for this is that in the Bible God speaks to us. . . . Only if we dare for once to enter into relationship with the Bible as the place where the God who loves us really speaks to us; and will not leave us alone with our questions will we be happy with the Bible.
The Bible is a “hot wire” in our hands!
B. The word in all its forms available to us.
The standard versions are basic: KJV, RSV, NEB, NASB, New Jerusalem Bible, NIV, New American Bible, NKJ, NRSV.
The paraphrases, The Message and The Living Bible, should be used only as commentary on the above, not as a permanent substitute. They are fine for light reading, but not for careful study, for as paraphrases they are highly interpretive so. Always check the more literal texts that they are interpreting.
C. Read methodologically, with a thought out plan.
The biblical admonition as Jesus put it is to “LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH . . . ALL YOUR MIND” (Mark 12:30), in order that “these words . . . shall be on your heart” (Deut. 6:6), that is, read intelligently and on purpose!
For the Bible is both “the words of men” and “the word of God”: it is at the same time a human book, a Christ-centered book, and a Holy Spirit book.
So read consistently—with a definite method and program. To jump around is defeating. Earl Lee used to talk about SMU—
What does it Say? Or observe; What does it Mean? Or interpret; How can I Use it: Apply.
Lectio Divina: Reflect, Meditate, Teresa of Avila’s method: Read, Reflect, Respond, Rest
Pray: Martin Luther for his barber wrote “A Simple Way to Pray,” in which he instructed him how to pray through his reading of Scripture.
The Lectionary: Found in the Episcopalian or Anglican Book of Common Prayer. See also the Catholic and Lutheran worship manuals, and there are other programmed guides.
Some plan for the whole. I remember Lewis T. Corlett in his nineties commending reading the Bible all the way through several times in one’s lifetime in order to have a balanced knowledge of the Scriptures. I mentioned this to my mother who at the time was also in her nineties. Although she had been a life-long Bible reader, she was startled to realize that she had never done that, and promptly began to do so.
The way I have done it is with six plastic paper clips, the first at the beginning of the Old Testament, the second at 1 Samuel, the third at Psalms, the fourth at Proverbs, the fifth at Matthew, and the final one at the book of Acts. Then I would turn at least a page each day from one or two of the clips, and daily from the Psalms, starting over when I reach Psalm 150. I started this practice again New Year’s day with the NRSV. In the edition I am using the reading of the entire Bible can be completed in a year by reading only three pages per day.
Dr. Corlett at my request once wrote me for me a one-page essay entitled “Devotional Observations.: He advised that one should “saturate your sub-conscious mind with Scripture and sound doctrine so the Spirit can take care of the things of Christ and illuminate them to you.”
III. We can by the use of OTHER books
Here we refer to those works that contain the witness of the people of God who in every time and place since Jesus came to earth have sought to live out of that one same book under the guidance of the Risen Lord by the Holy Spirit
A. The spiritual classics:
A classic is one that has stood the test of time--"of the highest class; most representative of the excellence of its kind; having recognized worth.”
For the spiritual classics a readable and enjoyable first introduction is Bernard Christensen, The Inward Pilgrimage: Spiritual Classics from Augustine to Bonhoeffer, Augsburg, 1976. A chapter is given to each selection.
(2) For the history of spirituality very helpful for perspective are the brief volumes of Michael Cox, Handbook of Christian Spirituality, Harper and Row, 1985, Urban T. Holmes, A History of Spirituality: An Analytical Introduction , Seabury, 1980, and Frank C. Senn, ed., Protestant Spiritual Traditions, Paulist Press, 1986. See also Gordon S. Wakefield, ed., The Westminster Dictionary of Spirituality , Westminster, 1983; and Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, and Edward Yarnold, eds., The Study of Spirituality, Oxford University Press, 1986.
The classic history of spirituality is the three volume work by Louis Bouyer, Jean Leclercq, and Francois Vandenbroucke, A History of Spirituality , The Seabury Press, 1982. A more recent and thorough historical treatment are Volumes 16, 17, and 18 of World Spirituality: An Encylopedic History of the Religious Quest, Eward Cousins, general editor, Crossroad Publishing Company: Bernard McGinn, John Meyendorff, and Jean Leclercq, eds., Christian Spirituality I: Origins to the Twelfth Century, 1985; Jill Riatt, Bernard McGinn, and John Meyendorff, eds., Christian Spirituality II: High Middle Ages and Reformation, 1988; and Louis Dupre and Don E. Saliers, Christian Spirituality: Post-Reformation and Modern, 1991.
(3) Among the better known classics are for example Athanasius, Life of Anthony, 4th cen. The Desert Fathers, 4-5th centuries Augustine's Confessions, 4th century Benedict, Rule, 6th century The Little Flowers of St. Francis ,13th century The Cloud of Unknowing , 14th century Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, 15th century The Book of Common Prayer, 1549-1979 St. Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life and The Interior Castle, 16th century John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul, 16th century Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, 17th century John Bunyan, Pilgrims Progress , 17 c. John Wesley, The Journals of the Reverend John Wesley, 18th cen. The Philokalia, 1782 The Way of the Pilgrim, 19th century Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, 1941 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 1959 Dag Hammarskold, Markings, 1964 Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 1972.
We could go on and on and mention other writers down through the history of the people of God such as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite, John Cassian, Bernard of Clairvaux, Anselm, William of St. Thierry, Bonaventure, Thomas Acquinas, Meister Eckhart, John Tauler, John Ruysbroeck, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Genoa, Gregory Palamas, Ignatius Loyola, Francis De Sales, Francis Fenelon, Blaise Pascal, Richard Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, George Herbert, William Law, Martin Luther, Richard Baxter, John Calvin, Jacob Boehme, George Fox, Johann Arndt, Jonathan Edwards, John Woolman, John Henry Newman, Therese of Lisieux, Friederich von Hugel, Evelyn Underhill, Martin Buber, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Simon Weil, Martin Luther King, etc.
Helpful anthologies of classic writings include:
David A. Fleming, The fire and the Cloud: An Anthology of Catholic Spirituality. Paulist Press, 1978. Thomas Kepler,. Fellowship of the Saints. Nashville, 1948. __________, A Journey with the Saints. World Publishing Company, 1951. George A. Maloney, ed., Pilgrimage of the Heart: A Treasury of Eastern Christian Spirituality. Harper and Row, 1983.
See particularly the series now being issued by Paulist Press, The Classics of Western Spirituality: "The original writings of 60 universally acknowledge teachers within the Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, Islamic and American Indian traditions."
See also the new series on American spirituality and the series by Multnomah Press.
B. Devotional books and helps
Not all are helpful. The usefulness of a devotional book depends on where one is on his or her spiritual journey, and of course on one’s own tastes and unique makeup.
Test them, do they stimulate you to remember—to remember the spiritual basics, the saving events which have formed you? Do they stimulate you to renew your faith? Do they thrust you into the process of daily spiritual renewal, to the fiery experience of judgment and grace?
(3) Among the best in my estimation is Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 1965. Three recent ones that are excellent are Reuben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck's, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants. . Nashville: The Upper Room, 1983; and A Guide to Prayer For Ail God's People. Nashville, The Upper Room,1990. On a par with these is Bob and Michael Benson, Disciplines for the Inner Life. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1985. An older yet delightful volume in the same general genre is John W. Doberstein, ed., The Minister's Prayer Book: An Order of Prayers and Readings. Collins, 1964. There are other devotional treasures that could be added profitably to this list, I am sure.
C. All kinds of religious books in their season are candidates for lectio divina
For guidance in spiritual reading see Susan Muto, A Practical Guide to Spiritual Reading, Dimension Books, 1976.
There are many biographical, theological, and practical books—even fiction, that you can use for self-reflection and self-examination, books that you can meditate on and pray your way through. Does God speak to you, to your condition, as you read and reflect on them?
Some book’s that have meant a lot to my personal spiritual journey over the years:
The Diary of Soren Kierkegaard , 1960 John Baille, A Diary of Private Prayer, 1949 Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion, 1941. Dag Hammarskold, Markinqs, 1964 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison , 1953. Reuben Welch, We Really Do Need Each Other, nd Thomas Dubay, Caring: A Biblical Theology of Community, 1973 William Barclay, A Spiritual Biography, 1975 John Powell, My Pilgrimage of Prayer ,1974 Keith Miller, A Taste of New Wine and A Second Touch, 1967 Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline, 1978, 1988, 1993. Bernard Christensen, The Inward Pilgrimage: Spiritual Classics from Augustine to Bonhoeffer,1976. Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, 1972; The Way of the Heart, 1981; The Genesee Diary , 1976; Making All Things New , 1981; The Living Reminder , 1977; Reaching Out, 1976; Gracias: A Latin American Journal , 1983. Jurgen Moltmann, Experiences of God, 1980. Silent Pilgrimage to God: The Spirituality of Charles D. Foucauld, 1974. Carlo Carreto, Letters from the Desert, 1972. Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer , 1971; New Seeds of Contemplation , 1972; The Sign of Jonas , 1979 The Way of A Pilgrim , 1978 George Appleton, Prayers from a Troubled Heart, 1983 Elizabeth of the Trinity, I Have Found God: Complete Works , Volume I, 1984. Thomas Dubay, Fire Within, St Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel—on Prayer , 1989. Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart: The ContemplativeDimension of the Gospel , 1986. The Collected Works of John of the Cross, 1992 (1542-1591) The Collected Works of Teresa of Avila, 1987. Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home , 1992. Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk, 1996. Waltraud Herbstrith, Edith Stein: A Biography, 1985. Frank X. Tuoti, Why Not Be A Mystic, 1886,
D. Journals and Magazines
A bimonthly journal in the area of spiritual life including articles and reviews and representing both Catholic and Protestant traditions was initiated with its September/October 1986 issue. Edited by John S. Mogabgab, Weavings "Woven Together by Love": A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, is published by The Upper Room, 1908 Grand Avenue, P.O. Box 189, Nashville, Tennessee 37202. Another helpful journal is Spiritual Life, published quarterly by the Washington Province of Discalced Carmelite Friars, 2131 Lincoln Road NE, Washington DC 20002-1199. The writers are not exclusively Roman Catholic. There are of course many others that could be explored as to their value or effectiveness. Always test them for yourself.
IV. We can by attention to THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES
A. Sources
The spiritual disciplines came to the attention of Christians with the publication of Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline, Harper and Row, 1978, 1988, 1993. Its three editions testifies to its usefulness and popularity. Several books have followed, the most notable being the fresh examination by Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, Harper and Row, 1988, called by Foster "the book of the decade." See also Wesley D. Tracy, E. Dee Freeborn, Janine Tartaglia, and Morris Weigelt, The Upward Call Spiritual Formation and the Holy Life, Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1994. Others are Tilden Edwards, Living in the Presence: Disciplines for the Spiritual Heart , Harper and Row, 1987, and Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, NavPress, 1991. One should not overlook Steve Harper's, Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition, The Upper Room, 1983. The author gives us in very readable form the results of his doctoral research on Wesley's devotional disciplines, and relates them to contemporary practice.
B. A Rule of Devotion
During the summer of 1980 on a seven thousand mile roundtrip drive eastward including the 1980 General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene in Kansas City, Missouri, I became painfully aware of an intense anger submerged deep in the emotional structures of my personality. I did not like what was happening within me, the kind of person I was becoming. My first thought was to seek another environment for my ministry. But I knew that wherever I went I would take me with me, and solve nothing.
Instead I determined to work on the real problem--me, right where I was, on the campus of Point Loma College in San Diego. Through the graciousness of God the necessary task was clear, the concerted effort to redig the wells of my personal devotional life, a quest that continues.
The first decisive step was taken on that drive. In Port Huron, Michigan I purchased Richard Foster's recently published Celebration of Discipline. With my interest newly awakened in the spiritual disciplines my attention was next caught by Bernhard Christensen's The Inward Pilgrimage: Spiritual Classics from Augustine to Bonhoeffer staring out at me from an Augsburg Press booth at an annual meeting of AAR-SBL. With its purchase a journey into the spiritual classics was underway.
Three significant influences are highlighted in my mind arising out of the spiritual quest that followed. First was the discovery of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection. The little book that stemmed from his life, The Practice of the Presence of God, had long been on my shelf, but it had never before demanded to be read. As I read this little book and encountered the life that shone through its pages, that of an elderly uneducated monk in a monastery kitchen in medieval France who was sought out for spiritual counsel, even by some in high places convinced me as never before that the strength of my devotional discipline is the strength of my ministry!
Second, I encountered the writings of Henri J. M. Nouwen through the gift of a friend. Most crucial for me among Nouwen's writings was his The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry with its three simplistic yet profound chapters on Solitude, Silence, and Prayer, just off the press. During the Spring Quarter break of 1981, a particularly dark moment in my spirits, I gave myself to the meditative reading of The Way of the Heart, remaining alone and in silence as much as humanly possible. That week, into what seemed to be a long black and endless tunnel, a hopeful ray of light began to shine from the opening in the distance. The end was in sight! The three emphases of that brief document continue to impact me as I have exposed myself to more of Nouwen's writings and to the stream of spiritual writing out of which he was working. The third development, most pertinent to this essay, came as I was working through Kenneth Leech's True Prayer, loaned to me by my teaching-brother since 1961, Reuben Welch. As I read I began to sense the need of a "rule" for myself to follow in my devotional discipline, one tailored just for me So I began the construction of what I labeled "Towards a Rule of Devotion" consisting only of an outline with each point illustrated by a quotation from Scripture or some classical Christian writer. My "Rule" continues to be an integral part of my devotional experience to the present. So I present it in its latest form for the Spirit to illumine as he wills!
A RULE OF DEVOTION
Introduction: Find a regular time and place of solitude
"The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room" (Pascal).
"Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. Solitude begins with a time and place for God, and him alone. If we really believe not only that God exists but also that he is actively present in our lives--healing, teaching, and guiding--we need to set aside a time and place to give him our undivided attention" (Nouwen).
From the world to the Word
Relax in the realization of God's presence, one "more intimate to us than we are to ourselves" "and from us you never depart, yet we with difficulty return to you (Augustine).
"To consent to God's presence is God's presence" (Keating).
"Almighty God to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name" (Book of Common Prayer).
Surrender to God and to his will for you this day:"The first movement in all prayer, together with faith in His presence, ought to be the desire to know His will and to abandon oneself entirely to all His dispositions and intentions for us" (Merton).
"Hear, 0 Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart" (Deuteronomy 6:4-6).
Apply the mind to the witness of Scripture and to other testimony to God, i.e., Lectio Divina:
Martin Luther suggests a "thorough digestion of a scriptural or other passage of testimony" for "the Word of God speaks in, with, and under the words of the Bible."
Always helpful is to read a Psalm daily, or choose a Psalm for the week and read it daily. The Psalms are universal, speaking to everyone's experience. One can pray a Psalm as one's personal prayer·
II. From the mind to the heart
Meditate on the truth of God as illuminated to your mind by the Holy Spirit:
his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in his law he mediates day and night 0 how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day. I have more insight than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation (Ps. 1:2; 119:97; cf. 19:14).
"Meditation is above all a quest. The mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking.''
Reflect silently or in writing on your life, your attitudes and feelings;
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way (Ps. 139:23-24)
"Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation" (Luke 11:2-4).
Contemplate God:
Contemplative prayer “is consenting with your will to God’s Presence in pure faith.”
Contemplation is "the adoration and love of God above all, for his own sake, because he is God" (Merton).
"Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:41-42).
"To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, every-present,all-seeing, within you" (Theophan the Recluse).
“They must be content simply with a loving and peaceful attentiveness to God, and live without the concern, without the effort, and without the desire to taste or feel him. For contemplation is nothing else than a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God, which, if not hampered, fires the soul in the Spirit of love, as is brought out in the following verse: Fired with love's urgent longings" (John of the Cross).
Contemplative or "mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us" (Teresa of Avila).
In a class presentation at PLNC, March 11, 1993, I heard Brennan Manning say that "contemplation is the awareness of my belovedness. The price is radical solitude. Show up and shut up."
The contemplative act is two things: "loving communion and divine ignorance" (Underhill).
III. From the inward to the outward journey
1. Receive the Spirit of Christ for the day:
"how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him" (Luke 11:13).
"He breathed on then, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:22).
"If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him" (Romans 8:9).
2. Intercede for the church, for others, and for yourself, bringing all into the presence of God:
"So, after many years I can say that I have remained true to my vocation, and at the same time I am completely convinced that one never wastes time by praying; there is no more helpful way of helping those we love (Carreto).
"Our Father, we take our loved ones and all those who need us deeply into our hearts and there we give them completely to thee. May thy peace, the peace which passeth all understanding, rest on them, bringing thy perfect fulfillment to all their needs· Amen" (Glenn Clark).
"Draw thou my soul, O Christ, Closer to thine; Breath into every wish Thy will divine!
Not for myself alone May my prayer be; Lift thou thy world, O Christ, Closer to thee! (Lucy Laracom)
Give praise to God:
It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night (Ps. 92:1-2, NIV).
Conclusion: Go into the activites of the day with confidence in God's constant presence and help
"Love to pray. Feel often during the day the need for prayer, and take trouble to pray. Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God's gift of himself. Ask and seek, and your heart will grow big enough to receive him and keep him as your own" (Mother Teresa).
"Be gracious to me, O Lord, For to You I cry all day long" (Psalm 86:3)·
"Seek in reading and you will find in meditating; knock in mental prayer and it will be opened to you by contemplation" (Guigo the Carthusian, Scala Paradisi: PL 40, 998),
This "Rule" is not intended as a devotional straightjacket designed for a merit performance and therefore suffocating to the spirit. The motivation is for when I do get apart for my quiet hour, perplexed as to how to spend it, here is a guide that I can work through. The nine points are engraved on my memory, they are an intimate part of me. Most often I use the whole, but at times that suit my time, concerns, and mood. The "Rule" is not my master, but my servant, my personal "means of grace." When others are drawn to the use of this "Rule" I do not expect or desire that it be used as is. But if it can motivate to or function as the starting point for the formation of devotional guide uniquely constructed by and for each individual, I am grateful. I am convinced, however, of the need for every Christian, particularly the minister, to have a "rule" to follow for their devotional life. In retrospect the use of this "Rule" in the context of the quest that was the catalyst for its creation has made a qualitative difference in my own life and ministry. I will not catalog the results for they are subjectively perceived. Only my family, friends, co-workers, and students are the more objective observers.
CONCLUSION
In the summer of 1980 when I began to pay renewed attention to the quality of my personal devotional life it became painfully clear to me that
It is one thing to be a Christian, but It is another thing to be Christian!
Early in 1981 I wrote down the following observations out of what was happening in my journey and for my sense of direction on that journey:
My only real calling is to be Christian in my world, whatever may be my providential place and role.
I do not know how to be Christian, what the actions and reactions, the Christian answer to the specifics of the situations which make up any given day.
My only recourse is to an utter daily dependence on Christ exposing myself consistently to His presence through the means of grace available to me.
St. Theophon the Recluse (1815-1894), one of the most learned writers of Russian spiritualilty concludes for us:
When you establish yourself in the inner person by the remembrance of God, then Christ the Lord will enter and dwell within you. The two things go together. And here is a sign for you, by which you can be certain that this glorious work has begun within you: you will experience a certain feeling of warmth towards the Lord. If you fulfill everything prescribed, then this feeling will soon begin to appear more and more often, and in time will become continuous. This feeling is sweet and beatific, and from its first appearance it stimulates us to desire and seek it, lest it leave the heart: for in it is Paradise. Do you wish to enter this Paradise as quickly as possible? Here, then, is what you must do. When you pray, do not end your prayer without having aroused in your heart some feeling towards God, whether it be reverence, or devotion, or thanksgiving, or glorification, or humility and contrition, or hope and trust. Also when after prayer you begin to read, do not finish reading without having felt in your heart the truth of what you read. These two feelings--the one inspired by prayer, the other by reading--mutually warm one another; and if you pay attention to yourself, they will keep you under their influence during the whole day. Take pains to practice these two methods exactly and you will see for yourself what will happen."
So in the words of the Psalmist
In 5:3 In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice.
In 18:28 For You light my lamp; The LORD my God illumines my darkness.
We return to our text, Luke 24:32—an illuminating picture of the devotional experience!
“Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”
This is our privilege every day as Christians—revival every morning!
Lewis T. Corlett, who died at the age of 96 on January 1, 1992, was , as I observed him, a man who more than any other lived his life in the presence of God. The motto of his long and fruitful life, taken from Acts 28:15, are words I wish to leave with you:
Thank God and take courage!
Frank G. Carver Fresh Start 2000 Southern California District January 8, 2000 See Sermon #534 on Microsoft Word disk 5.1, and Life of Holiness notes and Microsoft disk 6.4.2. In Alister E. McGrath, Spirituality in an Age of Change: Rediscovering the Spirit of the Reformers, 1994, 9, was a quote I once used here.. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, The Practice of the Presence of God, tran. John J. Delaney (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1977), 82. I had opened off my shelf a 1945 edition published by the Newman Book Shop in Westminster, Maryland, which had been given to me by Ruth Berry from the library of her deceased husband, Retired Navy Chaplain Reginald A. Berry. I have since returned it to Ruth's grandson, Brad Berry, who at that time was entering the Christian ministry. 161l was the date of the King James Version. The date of his death is not precisely known. Bernhard Christensen, The Inward Pilgrimage: Spiritual Classics from Augustine to Bonhoeffer (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976), 75. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, OCD (Nicholas Herman), Writings and Conversations on the Practice of the Presence of God. Critical Edition, translated by Salvatore Sciurba, OCD. (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1994). Christensen, 74. NASB used unless otherwise indicated. G. Henton Davies, "Memorial, Memory," IDB, K-Q, 345. T. Sorg, “Heart,” DNTT, Vol. 2, ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967, 1969, 1971), 181. Roland E. Murphy, “The Faith of the Psalmist,” Interpretation, Vol. xxxiv, No. 3 (July, 1980), 234. Alan Richardson. Get further documentation. Describe briefly the view of Zwingli, Calvin, and the Wesleyan tradition. Davies, 345. See Flanner O’conner, Images of Grace? Check out Henri J. M. Nouwen, Gracias! A Latin American Journal (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), 69-70. Our comments on James 1:21 are preserved in Microsoft Word,6.4.2, Life of Holiness notes. Lawrence, 1977, 88. Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel (Rockport, Massachusetts: Element, 1986), 46. Or like the pilings undergirding the Ocean Beach pier. Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1969), 33. He quotes loosely from Augustine, Confessions, but does not give the exact reference which I have not yet been a ble to locate. Barbara Dent, My Only Friend is Darkness: Living the Night of faith with St. John of the Cross (Washington D.C.: ICS Publications, 1992 [Ave Maria Press,1988)], 51-52, writes of “the process whereby grace pierces the conscious level of our inner being so as to plunge unto the unconscious at its deepest strata. Here exist, unknown to us, all those repressions, complexes, psychological syndromes and submerged tendencies that influence our behavior, promote emotional upheavals and aberrations, and often reduce us to impotence before their insidious infiltrations or violent upsurges. Grace operating in these profound, mysterious strata in the night of spirit gradually reveals to us what we need to now about ourselves in order to advance in love, brings under its control those so potent forces of primal energy, and casts out whatever can never be reconciled to God.” How far should one go here into contemplation in the tradition of John of the Cross? Or does it fit better later in this discussion? Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 5. Ibid., 4. Proverbs 23:7, KJV. Quoted orally to me by father Charles, Abbott of Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside, California, from Edward Farrell, Prayer is Hunger (Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1972). But I could never find it and when I mentioned that to Father Charles, his comment was, “It must have been some other book!” Murphy, 234. NRSV. Jesus quoted this text in the temptation narrative, Matthew 4:4. John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions (London: Collins, 1964), vi. See John Wesley on the Means of Grace, particularly his view of Scripture as such. Urban T. Holmes, Spirituality For Ministry, 135. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Letter to Rudiger Schleicher,” 8 April, 1936, in A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,. Geffrey B. Kelley & F. Burton Nelson (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), 448-449. Full quote in 6.4.2, Life of Holiness. Should these three dimensions be expanded on somewhere in this section? See Sam Anthony Morello, OCD, Lectio Divina and the Practice of Teresian Prayer (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1995), and her “The Way of Perfection,” and “The Book of Her Life.”. John Doberstein, ed., The Minister’s Prayer Book (London: Collins, 1964), 437-460. The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church. Together with The Psalter or Psalms of David. According to the use of The Episcopal Church (New York: The Seabury Press, 1979. Lewis T. Corlett was President of Nazarene Theological Seminary 1952-1966. In retirement he taught with me at Pasadena College 1966-1973. Previously he had been President of Northwest Nazarene College 1942-1952, College Professor, and Pastor. See Lewis T. Corlett, Thank God and Take Courage: How the Holy Spirit Worked in my Life, edited and annotated by Frank G. Carver (San Diego, CA: Point Loma Press, 1992), 98-100, for a detailed list of the dates in his life, and rich reflections on Christian living.. From his “Devotional Observations” in 6.4.2, Life of Holiness. See also M. Robert Mulholland, Jr.,Shaped by the Word: The Power of the Scripture in Spiritual formation. Nashville: The Upper Room, 1985 For example, the novels of George McDonald, C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkian, among many. On Microsot Word disk 6.4.2, is a Appendix to the Life of Holiness form of this material. It contains a list of books named by several of my PLNC colleagues when asked about the books that have meant the most to their spiritual journey over the years. See also Life of Holiness file. Check out his newest release. We will not trace the struggles, growth, and failures that characterized my attempts at a meaningful devotional life up to this point, a story familiar to most of us anyway! The reference is to the joint annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, probably in the fall of 1980 at Dallas. My copy, a 1945 edition published by the Newman Book Shop in Westminster, Maryland, had been given to me by Ruth Berry from the library of her deceased husband, Retired Navy Chaplain Reginald A. Berry. I have since returned it to Ruth's grandson, Brad Berry, who at that time was entering the Christian ministry. The book was Henri J;. M. Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer: Ministry in a Contemporary Society (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1972), given to me by Pastor Joe Farrow of the Linda Vista Church of the Nazarene in San Diego. The book made such an impact on me that when I saw another book advertised by the same author I immediately went for it. It was the book I now refer to. Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Desert: Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry (New York: The Seabury Press, 1981). Kenneth Leech, True Prayer, An Invitation to Christian Spirituality (New York: Harper and Row, 1980). Reuben Welch, Associate Professor Emeritus of Religion, Point Loma Nazarene University. He retired in 1989. The catalyst came when Leech presented a rule suggested by a Jesuit writer [get his rule and include here]. This became the immediate model from which I worked. One's mind goes immediately to the famous rules of St. Ignatius Loyala, the founder of the Jesuits, which he designed to form an army for the Lord. A brief history and discussion of such efforts is found in William A. Paulsell, "Ways of Prayer: Designing a Personal Rule," Weavinqs: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life , volume II, Number 5 (September/October1987), 40-44. Three rule-like volumes appearing in the last fifteen years that I have found helpful are Reuben P. Job and Norman Showchuck, Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1983), Bob and Michael W. Benson, Disciplines for the Inner Life (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1985), and Reuben P. Job and Norman Showchuck, A Guide to Prayer for All God's People (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 1990). See also The Book of Common Prayer, and Doberstein”s The Minister's Prayer Book. Blaise Pascal, Pensees (Penguin Books, 1966), VIII, 136. Henri J. M. Nouwen, Making All Things New: An Invitation to Spiritual Life (San Francisco: Harper and row, 1981), 69. The first part of the quotation comes from Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer, 33, but he does not give the exact reference in Augustine’s Confessions. The second part comes from Mary T. Clark and Goulven Madec, eds., Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), p. 85. It is located in The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Book 8, 3. Keating, 46. The Book of Common Prayer, 355. Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1953), 112f. Doberstein,, 16, 19. . See Bernhard Anderson, Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for us Today (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983), 15-19, and Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Liguori, Missouri: Liguori Publications, 1994), 649. Keating, 96. Merton, Contemplative Prayer, 115. Theophan the Recluse, a Russian mystic. Quoted from Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, 76. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriquez, eds., The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross , rev. trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriquez (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1991), 382. See page 401. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, The Collected Works of Teresa of Avila , trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 2nd. ed. 1987), 96. Eveleyn Underhill, Mysticism (New American Library, Meridian Classics, 12th. ed., 1930 [1910), 328. Carlo Carreto, Letters From the Desert, trans. Rose Mary Hancock (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1972), xx. Quoted from Job and Schawchuck, 1983, 274. Ibid., 291. Mother Teresa quoted from Job and Shawchuck, 1983, 233. Catechism, 637f. In an earlier form of this document I was more specific. Those dated observations are preserved on Wordhandler Disk 6.4.2, 4F. A brief form of the Rule can be found on Microsoft Word disk 6.4.2. Faculty Chapel testimony, April 30, 1984. Quoted in Job and Shawchuck, 1983, 378. My Life of Holiness notes suggest that this could be balanced by a statement from John of the Cross or Thomas Dubay, etc. See Lewis T. Corlett, 18, 46, 51, 53n., 60n., 74, 79n., 92, 101.
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