Quote of the day, 9 February: Brother Lawrence, Maxims 15–19

These short spiritual maxims continue Brother Lawrence’s simple and faithful teaching on living continually in the presence of God.

CHAPTER 4
UNION OF THE SOUL WITH GOD

• There are three kinds of union: the first is habitual, the second virtual, and the third actual.
• Habitual union is when we are united to God solely by grace.
• Virtual union is when we begin an action by which we are united with God and remain united with him by virtue of this action, the entire time of its duration.
• Actual union is the most perfect. And completely spiritual as it is, its movement is perceptible because the soul is not asleep as in the other unions but finds itself powerfully stirred. Its operation is more intense than fire, more luminous than the sun in a clear sky. Nonetheless, this feeling can be misleading, for it is not a simple expression of the heart, like saying, “My God, I love you with all my heart,” or other similar words. It is, rather, an “I don’t know what” of the soul, gentle, peaceful, spiritual, respectful, humble, loving, and very simple, that upholds and incites it to love God, to adore him, and even embrace him with an inexpressible tenderness that experience alone can enable us to understand.
• Those who seek divine union must know that whatever attracts the will is, in fact, agreeable and delightful, or so it is perceived. We must admit that God is incomprehensible, and that to be united with him we must deprive the will of all sorts of spiritual and physical satisfactions so that, being thereby set free, it can love God above all things. If the will can in some respect comprehend God, it can do so only by love. There is a great difference between the tastes and sentiments of the will and the operations of the same will, because the tastes and sentiments of the will are in the soul as in their object [terme], and its operation, which is properly love, terminates in God as in its end.

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection

Writings and Conversations, Maxims

Lawrence of the Resurrection, B; De Meester, C 1994, Writings and Conversations on the Practice of the Presence of God,  translated from the French by Salvatore Sciurba, OCD, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This image of an elderly friar at a writing table was created with Firefly3 in Adobe Express by Carmelite Quotes.

#BrotherLawrenceOfTheResurrection #practiceOfThePresenceOfGod #prayer #spiritualLife #spiritualMaxims