Contemplation

Opportune, importune, the second word being apparently understood in the sense of importunately. Chapter V. That the ruler should be a near neighbour to every one in compassion, and exalted above al

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This then should be our main effort: and this steadfast purpose of heart we should constantly aspire after; viz., that the soul may ever cleave to God and to heavenly things. Whatever is alien to this

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[152] Heaven. The saints in heaven will doubtless eternally exercise themselves in contemplation. They will not want employ this way; not in exercising their thoughts and study upon intricacies and se

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Germanus: The extent of our bewilderment at our wondering awe at the former Conference, because of which we came back again, increases still more. For in proportion as by the incitements of this teach

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I WILL hear what the Lord God will speak in me.” Ps. 84:9. Blessed is the soul who hears the Lord speaking within her, who receives the word of consolation from His lips. Blessed are the ears that c

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O LORD, I am in sore need still of greater grace if I am to arrive at the point where no man and no created thing can be an obstacle to me. For as long as anything holds me back, I cannot freely fly t

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Many have spoken much of their hearts being drawn out in love to God and Christ; and of their minds being wrapt up in delightful contemplation of the glory and wonderful grace of God, the excellency a

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Exhortation of the mind to the contemplation of God.—It casts aside cares, and excludes all thoughts save that of God, that it may seek Him. Man was created to see God. Man by sin lost the blessedness

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Sermon LIV. [CIV. Ben.] Again, on the words of the Gospel, Luke x. 38, etc., about Martha and Mary. 1. When the holy Gospel was being read, we heard that the Lord was received by a religious woman

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In describing loftily the sweetness of contemplation, you have renewed the groans of my fallen state, since I hear what I have lost inwardly while mounting outwardly, though undeserving, to the topmos

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CONSIDER the lively examples set us by the saints, who possessed the light of true perfection and religion, and you will see how little, how nearly nothing, we do. What, alas, is our life, compared wi

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1. True gratitude, or thankfulness to God for his kindness to us, arises from a foundation, laid before, of love to God for what he is in himself; whereas a natural gratitude has no such antecedent fo

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The nature of the work in a particular instance. I have been particularly acquainted with many persons who have been the subjects of the high and extraordinary transports of the present day. But in t

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Chapter 31.—The Life of the Anachoretes and Cœnobites Set Against the Continence of the Manichæans. 65. What must we think is seen by those who can live without seeing their fellow-creatures, though

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Introduction to the Conference. What was promised in the second book of the Institutes See the Institutes Book II. c. ix. Isaac was, as we gathered from c. xxxi., a disciple of St. Antony, and is m

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Cf. S. Luke vii. 47. Of the kinds of prayer to which we ought to direct ourselves. Yet we ought by advancing in life and attaining to virtue to aim rather at those kinds of prayer which are poured f

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The words of Abbot Nesteros on the knowledge of the religious. The order of our promise and course demands that there should follow the instruction of Abbot Nesteros,πρακτική, i.e., practical, which

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