Assumptions tell a Different Story

Catholic Spirituality – Scripture and Tradition.
Forty years ago I was challenged by a Canoness. I had just finished a weekend course on personal prayer at the retreat centre that I ran in North London when the Canoness struck. She wasn’t just any Canoness, but a Canoness of the Holy Sepulchre. Her dedication to liturgical prayer had made her somewhat dismissive of personal prayer which she felt was all well and good for the laity, but not for semi-contemplative nuns like her, whose spiritual meat and drink was primarily and almost exclusively ‘the prayer of the Church’- the corporate expression of the faith of the community.

Shortly after I had founded the retreat centre, where I had given the course, I went to Franciscan Italy to prepare myself for the task ahead. I spent some time in the hermitage of Fonte Colombo high up on the hillside overlooking the Rieti Valley, where St Francis had completed his rule in 1223. It was here that I first came across the words of the great Franciscan reformer, St Bernadine of Siena. So that nobody would ever forget them, he had written these words in capital letters around the sanctuary where the liturgy was celebrated each day. They were meant to remind his friars of an important spiritual truth that they would teach to others. The words were written in Latin, but anyone with a smattering of the Romance languages would be able to understand them - “Si Cor non orat, in vanum lingua laborat.” – “If the heart does not pray, then the tongue labours in vain.” These words were a constant reminder for his followers for generations to come, and not just for Franciscans, but for Jesuits and for Carmelites, like St Teresa of Avila, and St John of the Cross, and for other orders too too, and for all who looked to them for inspiration and guidance.  read on.....