Association Of Catholic Bloggers

(from The Cloistered Heart)

It's a bad time of year to be hurting.  Not that there is a good time for pain, of course, but the weeks around Christmas and New Year's can be particularly poignant for some. I suspect many of us have had such seasons. Times when we can't be with loved ones, or a relative or close friend has died, or we've suffered a miscarriage, or we're sick, or we've lost our job, or there is illness in the family.  Even the time of year can make us feel blue.  Here in the northern hemisphere, night falls early in these months of bleak midwinter. We may be struggling to adjust to the long, long, long dark. For anyone reading this who is sad, in pain, or maybe just wishing the holidays would be over and gone - know that you're not alone. In fact, you are so 'not alone' that I'm going to ask a favor of everyone reading this..... (continue)

Sometimes the activities of Advent and Christmas can feel like an intrusion. Day to day life is more or less put on hold by an urgent need to shop and wrap and plan. Chairs and tables are displaced by, of all things, a tree in the middle of our house.  There is no time to do ordinary things, as everyday life is seriously disrupted for weeks on end. It can seem like a major interruption.   A few years ago, the truth of it hit me. This is what Christmas has been since the instant of the Incarnation: an interruption. Please stay with me here, because our first reaction to the word “interruption” could be negative.  But interruptions are often quite positive, and this Interruption was the most positive of them all.... (continue...)

In the midst of a secular, godless, 'we're-doing-fine-by-ourselves' world, there appears in this one season a window of opportunity. There is a slot, a crack in the Everyday. A few short weeks during which the whisper of God might be heard through carol or card.... (continue)

'To eyes which know how to find it, there is in the  least luxuriant season of the year a beauty which is entirely sufficient.....' (continue..)

 (from The Cloistered Heart)

From The Cloistered Heart

(continue...)

'What does it mean to be saints? Who is called to be a saint? Often it is thought that holiness is a goal reserved for a few chosen ones. St. Paul, however, speaks of God's great plan... (continue)

'We know but too well that we deteriorate by our friction with the world.  Our clothes get worse for the wear, and so do our souls...' (continue)

(From The Cloistered Heart)

Without prayer,  nothing good is done......   continue

 (from The Cloistered Heart)

(from The Cloistered Heart)

Taking a block of time for prayer each day can be a life-changer. Yet keeping the commitment to do so is a struggle for me. I sometimes put it off until I'm ready to fall into bed, and then find myself omitting it entirely. I wonder what I might have missed on such days. What inspiration, guidance and insights did God have waiting for me? Were there special gifts? Was there a precious jewel that I left, ignored and unwrapped, while I ooohed and aaahed over the world's offerings of glitter and plastic? (continue...)

While our Sisters and Brothers in monasteries are chanting Vespers, we who live 'in the world' may well be in the busiest time of our day. The world, at Vespers-time, is right in the middle of rush hour. It is when many are leaving work, pouring into roads and trains to make the journey home. Some of us are preparing an evening meal, knowing that growling tummies will not be soothed if we hide away in prayer corners to sing and chant praise. So we do what must be done.... (click to continue)

The habit of a cloistered heart is a habit of seeking God's will. It is a habit of prayer, of virtue, of choosing Our Lord above all. It is a habit of holy actions acquired over time, through repetition... (continue) © N Shuman  

As a cloistered nun or monk lives within a specific area known as the cloister, we can make a specific choice to live within the will of God.... (click to continue)

'I want a laity... who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it...' (Blessed John Henry Newman) (continue....)

'True holiness does not mean a flight from the world;  rather, it lies in the effort to incarnate the Gospel in everyday life,  in the family, at school and at work, and in social and political involvement.'     Pope St. John Paul II   (continued at The Cloistered Heart)