"Easier said."

Francis Fenelon (1651-1715)
Excerpts from Christian Perfection

Francis was initially an Archbishop in the court Louis XIV (the Sun King) of France. He fell out of favour. He remained highly influential in his generation as a spiritual director.

His basic premise is that we should have an undivided heart toward God which is following the use of the same scripture as last week with "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all you mind all your soul and love your neighbour as yourself." He wants us to puts aside all worldly pursuits for the love of God. He goes to elaborate on the benefits of this lifestyle, but my mind raises all sorts of questions and difficulties  I can't  answer them and he doesn't try.
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While I see what he is saying as aspirational. It would seem much more difficult with a marriage and a family living in the 21st century then to a monk in the 17th century. I would imagine the push toward having an undivided  heart would have seemed simpler than it appears to me right now. I usually love his thoughts on prayer and find them so practical. I find this teaching harder not wrong, just more difficult to apply in my situation.

It is probably more difficult after the last writer Bernard of Clairvaux who reached such a connection with me last week.

Love brings depth

Excerpts from the Love of God: Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

Why love God?
In it's simplest form no one could be more justly loved than God, no one deserves our love more.

Bernard goes to describe a plan that follows scripture but gives you a blueprint to add depth to our love.

I want to play with this scripture Luke 10: 27 He answered: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you strength your mind and, love you neighbour as yourself."

Level One: Love of Self for Self's sake.

Our interest in self is planted deep within us by our creator. The world tries to warp this into many distorted facets that bring ugliness to this earth, power greed, hatred to name a few. But what if we read the scripture above from the back to the front? What if we loved ourselves with all our hearts, soul, strength and mind as God intended.  So that we were eventually at one with ourselves. From here on in if  each of us choose to focus on our healing and well-being  knowing eventually it would bring us closer to the God in whose image we are made. We would be indeed the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Then if we weren't competing with, and being frightened of, our neighbour. We may be able to love them, as ourselves, as our Heavenly Father would want. Not by judging by the world's standards by the standards of a loving God.

Level Two: Love of God for Self''s sake.

God blesses us with his love and protection. we love God because we begin to realise we can do nothing eternal without him. We learn we can do all things through him and without him nothing. These are all parts of loving God with all our hearts, soul, strength and mind.

Level Three: Love God for God's sake

If trials and tribulations continue to come upon us, every time God brings us through, even if our hearts were made of stone, we will begin to be softened because of the grace of the rescuer. Thus, we begin to love not merely for ourselves, but for himself.

In order to arrive at this we must continually go to God with our needs and pray. in those prayers the grace of God is tasted. and by frequent tasting it has proved to us how sweet the Lord is. drawing us into a pure love for God himself.  This also makes loving ourselves easier and certainly loving our neighbour in his name real.

This leads us into the Fourth Level: Loving Self for God's sake. Bernard suggests this is a fleeting experience this side of heaven but still an aspiration.

I have found this profound experience this week as I contemplated the scripture that God gave me and a new way to look at. Supported by the teaching of a man who lived a millennium ago! Quite a paradigm shift. Until next week.

Always darkest before the dawn.

 St John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Engaging it spiritual activity usually brings some form of encouragement to continue the practice or most of would give up pretty quickly. This may range from a minimal level to feelings of euphoria at times. The Spirit of God nurtures, us caresses us much as a mother or care giver, making sure our needs and desires are met. This is much of an infant stage of our spiritual development. St John then suggest a time will come when God wishes to take us deeper into him and burn off the dross of sin that may ensnare us through our devotional practice, our activity with God. He list seven types of sin that entrap us through our very activity with God.

1. Secret Spiritual Pride: brought about by our apparent success in "spiritual matters,"  those who delight to talk about spiritual things to show how clever they are. The answer to this springs as we learn to find humility when we focus not on our own cleverness but in the amazing character and activity of God. Pride becomes humility
2. Spiritual Greed: when we love the feelings that we get from the devotions and are always looking for more. When the feelings we experience become more than the inward journey. God may chose to take the pleasure away till the inward journey assumes its rightful place. Greed become simplicity
3. Spiritual Luxury: the person may be deep in prayer and experience deep temptations or fears caused by either the devil or physical pleasure during the process of prayer and communion. God may take all sensory pleasure away and the soul is purified by its absence. Luxury becomes peace.
4. Spiritual Anger and Wrath: may develop when some of the experiential manifestations of the devotional life are removed. We must seek meekness that will come about in the dark night of the soul. Wrath becomes contentment.
5. Spiritual Gluttony: becoming addicted to our spiritual activity and wanting more and more. Interestingly when we have received no pleasure from our devotions we can feel we have achieved very little during our time. This is quite wrong and is more attached to our flesh than our spirit. Gluttony becomes moderation.
6. Spiritual Envy: People who fancy themselves as spiritual are often not to pleased as they hear about the spiritual growth of others. Their chief concern is to get themselves praised by others. This is quite contrary to the teachings on love by Paul. Envy turns to joy
7. Spiritual Sloth: When the things above happen sometimes we just become weary when our needs aren't met we just give up.These are just the crosses we need to learn to bear in dark night of the soul. Sloth turns to Strength.

I thought this all very well if you are a 16th century monk, but is it relevant to the 21st century post modern westerner. I was unsure whether we had the depth have such problems. As I chewed these seven types of spiritual malaise over I began to see evidence of these things having been in my life. There have been times when I could relate to Secret spiritual pride, greed, gluttony, and envy. Mercifully they weren't there all at once! God is generous. I would not say I have completely overcome, but I am on the way in all. Into the darkness comes the light. As with the picture above it only takes a candle for it not to be completely dark any more.

It's one of my favourites

Week 4

Excerpts from "Introduction to the Devout Life" - Francis de Sales (1567-1622)



Francis writes this as a letter to Philothea (One who loves God); an imaginary character, as he urges him/her to consider what is a devout life? This is a concept and term that is not often used in this spiritual generation. It harks back to another age, but does that mean it is irrelevant?

Francis explains in these terms:
"Genuine, living devotion. Philothea, presupposes love of God, and hence it is simply true love of God. Yet it is not always love as such. Inasmuch as divine love adorns the soul, it is called grace which makes us pleasing to his Divine Majesty."

Devotions and disciplines are not readily taught in everyday church much these days. The ingredients of the devout life are actually quite rare in the 21st century western church. Being little talked about and not appearing to be widely practiced does not make them irrelevant. In fact a there is an new movement called New Monasticism developing across the UK that has its origins in these types of devotional practices. There is a new generation of Christians who find strength in practices that come from a previous era. They are not all young, but there seems to something in some of our younger people that wants more!

So what are these devotional practices? Richard Foster describes them as:
The Inward Disciplines: meditation, prayer, fasting, study
The Outward Disciplines: simplicity, solitude, submission, service

We live in a consumer culture so we tend to pick and choose the ones we like, if we do them at all. So what are your favourites? I include myself in this process, I am not sure I know anyone who does all these. But that doesn't mean we can't start. We often chose the things that make us feel good and don't always pursue things that are difficult. We can use our strengths to help. What is your favourite from the list? Can you practice it on regular basis for  a month or even 39 days ( the magic number to cement a habit so they say).  Then chose another and give it  try!! Dare to be different!!

I love this quote from Richard Fosters Celebration of Discipline
"Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people ,but for deep people."

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