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Showing posts with the label St. Teresa of Avila

Did Teresa of Avila teach Centering Prayer?

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St. Teresa's Transverberation by Joefa de Obidos (Wikimedia Commons Last winter on social media, I came across another Catholic author who was promoting yoga. Not as an exercise program, but for spiritual growth. I was shocked. I asked her why she wasn’t promoting prayer instead. She answered, “Meditation is prayer!” Nope. Two months ago, my brother forwarded an email from a colleague, asking about Centering Prayer. A friend was pushing it relentlessly. I looked at the website of the Catholic group that promotes Centering Prayer and found this in the FAQs: This form of prayer was first practiced and taught by the Desert Fathers of Egypt … the Carmelites St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and St. Therese of Lisieux… Nonsense. The other day a new reader asked in the comments about meditating on Sacred Scripture. “Is this the same as the method of Fr. John Main, who has adapted an Eastern mantra method for Christian meditation?” Uh-uh. I have written a

I Am Free (and it's not what I thought it was). My Conversion Story.

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I'm Laura Paxton and I am free. I am free to play, to create, to express myself, to explore my world. I am freer to think and to reason and daydream than I ever have before. I read more. I have meaningful work that I enjoy very much. I wake up each day with the joy of purpose before me. Only about five years ago, I existed in a cramped, dark apartment where I had given up on life, agoraphobic, eating mostly chocolate bars for sustenance and playing online scrabble all day long to keep my mind off the pain trapped deep inside. How did I end up there? Let's face it... I'm autistic. I'm bipolar. I've lived on the dangerous edges of life. I've been raped,  survived a near fatal suicide attempt, was almost successfully murdered and lived homeless at times in my teens. Over the course of my life, I've also been taken advantage of, tricked and abused because of my poor judgment, (which was poorer than most people's to begin with,

When We Are Struggling: Quotes From the Saints

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Teresa of Avila understood that humour helps us cope with difficult situations. Supposedly after a donkey threw her into a cold stream, Teresa stood in her heavy,dripping wet, medieval habit and yelled at God, “If this is the way You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few” A word of wisdom  from St. Teresa for when we are crying over unanswered prayers, “There are more tears shed over answered  prayers  than over unanswered prayers.” St. Teresa “Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry”  -St. Pio of Pietrelcino “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.” -St. Francis “Tribulation is a gift from God – one that he especially gives His special friends.”  -St. Thomas More read more>

Soar Like an Eagle

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“Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to  fly if unsupported by the air" -Ivan Pavlov S imilarly, we can try to perfect ourselves by our own efforts but we will never be able to fly in the Spirit, no matter how holy we seem, without the wind of the  Holy Spirit lifting and filling us with the Presence of God Isaiah 40:31  (NASB) Yet those who [ a ]wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up  with  wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. Teresa of Avila once explained the difference between what we do and what the Spirit of God does. We can build a stone aqueduct but then we must wait for rain to fill the reservoir and fill the channel with living water. Sometimes God will insert a geyser or an instantaneous fountain but usually we have to build an aqueduct and wait for His timing.

Are you living a contemplative life?

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Two Girls Praying,  Emile Munier Are you a contemplative? Some people, faced with this question, would answer an enthusiastic, “Yes!” Perhaps they are saints, at a high stage of union with God. Or perhaps they practice Eastern (as in Hindu or Buddhist) forms of meditation that they equate with contemplation. Some would call themselves contemplative because they are thoughtful and quiet. The rest of us might answer, “No.” Since we are not saints, we wouldn’t dare think of ourselves as contemplatives in the proper sense. Nevertheless, everyone, no matter his stage in the spiritual journey or his vocation, can live a contemplative life. A contemplative life is a life ordered toward union with God If you have read The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila, you know Teresa divides the spiritual life into seven stages, which she called mansions.  (To be completely accurate, she says that a soul goes back and forth among these stages, rather than proceeding from one to

Are you praying too much?

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Victory, O Lord by Millais (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons). Sunday’s Mass readings were all about prayer–winning battles through prayer, supporting each other in prayer, and never giving up. I love encouraging people to grow in their prayer life!  But today I want to ask a question that might seem odd to you: Can you pray too much? There are three ways in which I believe you can. Don’t let prayer keep you from living out your vocation   Again, this might confuse you. Haven’t I said before that prayer helps us live our vocation better ? That’s true. But you still need balance. If you are a stay-at-home mom with small children, you should not be spending hours a day alone in your room praying. If you are the father of a young family, you should not be spending most of every evening at Church. If you are a college student, you should not normally miss class to go to adoration. St. Francis de Sales, instructing lay people in Introduction to the Devout Life, wrote,

Let Teresa of Avila teach you about patience

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Window in the Convent of St. Teresa (photo credit: Wikipedia). Teresa of Ávila wrote these words on a bookmark she kept in her breviary: Let nothing disturb you; Nothing frighten you. All things are passing. God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Nothing is wanting to him who possesses God. God alone suffices. St. Teresa was determined to reach the heights of holiness. Yet at the same time she was realistic, based on her own experience and those of the nuns under her care as head of the Discalced Carmelite Order. Put these two characteristics together, and you have one of the wisest guides to the spiritual life. Let’s take a closer look at her advice. Perseverance is a key to success   Remember the parable Jesus told about the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8)? We must never give up praying when it seems God is not hearing us. Teresa advised her sisters to apply this lesson to growth in prayer. … I say that it is

What is Carmelite spirituality?

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What is Carmelite spirituality? A couple of readers have asked me this question, and I assume several more have wondered and not asked. So I'm going to write this as a post (for maximum visibility and readership), then make it a permanent page soon. Carmelite spirituality stems from the teaching and lifestyle of one of the oldest surviving religious orders in the Catholic Church. Like the Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and others, the Carmelites have a particular way of living out the faith, which has been approved by the Church. St. Therese of Lisieux, one of the best-beloved saints of our age, was a Carmelite nun. From ancient Mt. Carmel to medieval Europe In the 12th century, a group of Christian hermits settled on Mt. Carmel,  where the prophet Elijah had once lived in a cave. St. Albert of Jerusalem wrote a rule of life for them to follow. They built a monastery and came together for prayer, but each lived in his own cell. They dedicated their orat

Christian prayer is much more than Eastern meditation

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A few years ago at Mass in another diocese, the priest began a homily on the importance of daily prayer. I was elated. We hear this far too seldom from the pulpit. My elation soon turned to disappointment, however. He talked about being aware of the world around you, and your own thoughts and feelings. Shockingly, he didn't mention God at all! I realized the priest (apparently without knowing it) was not really advocating prayer, but a Buddhist-inspired form of meditation. Both Christians and Buddhists use the term “meditation,” so it's no wonder sincere people confuse the practices of the separate religions. But they are quite different. Keep reading to learn the difference.  (I had a problem with my post this morning. If you tried to read this and couldn't find it on my blog, please try again! Sorry for the inconvenience.)

What is mental prayer and how you can do it?

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Catholics divide prayer into 2 broad categories – vocal and mental. Vocal prayer includes prayers written for recitation. Mental prayer is prayer in one’s own words. St. Teresa of Avila wrote, “Mental prayer, in my view, is nothing but friendly intercourse, and frequent solitary converse, with Him Who we know loves us." St. Thérèse of Lisieux likewise wrote, “With me prayer is an uplifting of the heart; a glance towards heaven; a cry of gratitude and love, uttered equally in sorrow and in joy." Catholics are generally comfortable with vocal prayer, but mental prayer can leave us at a loss. How can you spend 20 minutes or more in prayer without a pre-written text? How can you keep your prayer from becoming mere rambling? Read to learn a suggested form of mental prayer.

Making a Mystic a Doctor of the Church

With the upcoming October 7th announcement that Pope Benedict XVI will pronounce that 12th century German mystic St. Hildegard of Bingen is a doctor of the church—as well as announcing that same honor being bestowed upon St. John of Avila—there is a renewed interest in the understanding of “mysticism” with our church. The church’s history with mystics actually goes back to the Jewish roots of the faith. Mysticism itself can best be explained as man’s need to connect with God in ways that transcend his mere day-to-day experiences. Man wants to know God intimately, deeply, privately—to fill that place within his heart which God created for His own indwelling. St. Augustine perfectly captured this earthly feeling when he said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest with Thee.” Augustine’s life (354-386), as told in his Confessions, reflects the ways in which man experiences earthly restlessness and pursues Divine intimacy.  Jewish mysticism, which dates back thousands of years, has a