The mountains taught me more than any teacher did.
They just stand there being mountains. They don't try to be spiritual. In their ordinariness, they hold something sacred.
What ordinary thing in your life holds something sacred?
Read the full essay
https://medium.com/@clarainsweden/why-i-no-longer-chase-enlightenment-e858ce8048eb
#spirituality #presence
#mindfulness #mountains #meditation
#ordinariness #contemplativelife #spiritualwisdom
My grandmother used to water her lemon trees every morning at the same time.
Not because the trees demanded it, but because the ritual anchored her day. She'd move between pots, touching each leaf with care.
What small ritual anchors your day?
#dailyritual #devotion #sacredpractice
#mindfulmoments #simplerituals #presencepractice
#contemplativelife #spiritualgrounding #dailypractice
My grandmother used to water her lemon trees every morning at the same time.
Not because the trees demanded it, but because the ritual anchored her day. She'd move between pots, touching each leaf with care.
What small ritual anchors your day?
#dailyritual #devotion #sacredpractice
#mindfulmoments #simplerituals #presencepractice
#contemplativelife #spiritualgrounding #dailypractice
Some mornings, I sit on my mat and just watch my breath.
I feel the weight of my body, hear the traffic outside. Maybe this unremarkable moment is what I was searching for all along.
What unremarkable moment are you sitting with right now?
#meditation #presence #mindfulness
#yoga #breath #spiritualpractice
#ordinarymoments #contemplativelife #dailypractice
An elderly nun in Nepal told me something I needed to hear.
Waking grateful for breath, that's enlightenment. Choosing kindness when tired. Ten thousand small moments, not one big awakening.
What small moment today did you choose presence?
#mindfulness #presence
#meditation #innerpeace #spiritualawakening
#buddhistwisdom #contemplativelife #dailypractice
I am the happiest person with my vocation and never tire of thanking God for having brought me to this little corner of heaven.
I live for God alone. My sole concern is to know Him that I may love Him more. I have begun the life of heaven here on earth, a life invented and thought of by God through all eternity; a life of love alone and of ceaseless praise.
If you could see but for an instant what’s in the soul of this Carmelite postulant, you’d understand the happiness of living always near the tabernacle. Alone with Him in His aloneness, I am there at the chapel grates or in my humble cell.
There is nothing between Him and His creature now. I hear His divine voice always. I gaze on always and contemplate His infinite beauty. I feel always the beating of my God’s Heart, begging me for love because He knows that love contains everything: sacrifice and souls.
Sister dear, without doubt, as Jesus Himself said to Magdalene, He has chosen for me “the best part.” A Carmelite is to be concerned with her God alone. She’s to live, no longer on earth, but in God. She is to move and to work and to breathe far from people, far from earthly things. We are to remember the world but only in order to pray for it and for people but without letting ourselves be influenced by them, without breathing in their impure atmosphere.
Jesus has imprisoned me here to unite Himself with me, nothing disturbing this gaze, this vision of this adorable Face of His which one day I shall possess in its fullness there in heaven. I often imagine that I am like a queen; for while others serve the King in the apostolate of action, I, like a queen, am by His side, listening to Him, contemplating Him, praying together with Him, and joining Him in His own suffering. He exchanges His own feelings with my own, by divinizing them. He surrounds me with His divine light, beautifying my soul with His teachings.
Oh, how good is this Jesus to me, His poor creature. He does not want to be separated from me for a moment. He seeks comfort and rest in my soul. He has made me like unto Himself by transforming me into a host.
Yes, a Carmelite is a host who carries Jesus within herself. She is not the one acting. It is He. He sacrifices her, offers her up in silence, just as He sacrifices and immolates Himself silently on the altar. She prays always with Jesus at the altar; she saves souls but by looking to Jesus. She sheds her heart’s blood by denying herself in all things. She has sacrificed everything for Jesus.
Saint Teresa of Jesus of the Andes
Letter 141 to Amelia Montt Martinez (excerpt)
October 1919
Griffin, M D & Teresa of the Andes, S 2023, The Letters of Saint Teresa of Jesus of the Andes, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: Image credit for the photo of St. Teresa of the Andes goes to the Discalced Carmelites.
https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/10/20/andes-ltr141/
#CarmelOfLosAndes #contemplativeLife #happiness #Jesus #postulant #prayer #StTeresaOfTheAndes #vocation
I didn’t know how to play like other children and as a consequence wasn’t a very pleasant companion. I did my best, however, to imitate them but without much success. I was very much bored by it all, especially when we spent the whole afternoon dancing quadrilles.
What I really liked, though, was going to the park [le Jardin de l’Etoile], for there I was first in everything, gathering flowers in great profusion and, knowing how to find the prettiest, I excited the envy of my companions.
What pleased me was when by chance I was alone with little Marie [Marie Guérin, her cousin] and, not having Céline Maudelonde [Marie Guérin’s cousin] dragging her into ordinary games, she left me free to choose, and I chose a game that was entirely new.
Marie and Thérèse became two hermits, having nothing but a poor hut, a little garden where they grew corn and other vegetables. Their life was spent in continual contemplation; in other words, one hermit replaced the other at prayer while she was occupied in the active life. Everything was done with such mutual understanding, silence, and so religiously that it was just perfect.
When Aunt [Céline Fournet Guérin] came to fetch us to go for our walk, we continued the game even on the street. The two hermits recited the rosary together, using their fingers in order to screen their devotion from the inquisitive public; however, one day the younger hermit forgot herself completely: having received a piece of cake for lunch, she made a big sign of the Cross over it before eating it, causing people to laugh.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
Manuscript A, folios 23r–23v
Note: Visit the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux to view a wash drawing by Charles Jouvenot depicting Marie and Thérèse in their little hermitage.
Thérèse & Foley, M 2005, Story of a Soul: The autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Study edn, translated from the French by Clarke, J, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: Indonesian photographer Gratias Adhi captures this image of a young girl and her mother praying the Holy Rosary together on her bed at home. Image credit: pakWw / Adobe Stock (Stock photo)
https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/10/06/tej-kidhermits/
#active #CélineGuérin #children #contemplativeLife #hermit #hermits #MarieGuérin #Rosary #StThereseOfLisieux #walk
"Usually, silence and solitude are joined together. One is not possible, or at least fruitful, without the other. For instance, if we seek both external and interior silence, we must establish an environment where this deep silence can be developed and can grow. That environment is solitude. When solitude and silence are joined together, they produce a sacred stillness that permeates every aspect of our life.”
Talbot, John Michael. The World is My Cloister: Living From the Hermit Within. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010, page 21.
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