As we sit poised on the edge of a new year, I'm taking this opportunity to open a new page here in the Parlor. As we remember, this is the place to visit with one another, and to leave comments about what has been found on The Cloistered Heart blog.
May God help us all to grow closer to Him in 2013!
You may return to the Cloistered Heart blog by clicking on this line.
Dear Nancy, Happy New Year and now go pick up another star for your 2012 Blog awards!...I have nominated you!
ReplyDeleteBlessings and +
Caroline, thank you so much!!!
DeleteNancy, I am also awarding you the blog of the year award, so you can add another star, if you haven't reached 6 yet.
ReplyDeleteConnie, thank you!
DeleteHappy New Year and may God bless you abundantly, Nancy!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your sweet comments on my post about our surprise trip to the mountains.
I loved reading your post over at The Cloistered Heart. Yes, indeed, how often is there so much noise in this world that the voice of God is drowned out...and even worse (IMO) how often am I the cause of that noise, in effect, drowning out God's calling to me and others around me! That might be a good New Year's Resolution for me...quiet.
Blessings,
Valerie
Thank you, Valerie. I am so much the cause of my own noise also.. it's a lifelong habit of thought. SIGH. It's great to have you here, and I look forward to hopping back over to your blog for more news of your beautiful family! (I'll bet it was quiet in the mountains? :)?)
DeleteNancy, I've read this quote 3 times now and I think it's going to stick with me for awhile.. What a beautiful meditation to start the year.. +
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Caroline!
DeleteColleen, thank you very much!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYOU ARE IN! Your mind cannot grasp what God is doing because the fire of His love is too much for our poor mind to grasp. All WE see is the darkness, confusion, woundedness that the light is pushing out. The more light in, the more the darkness flows out. And just to be sure we do not muck up this transformation, He keeps us out of the loop
ReplyDeleteThank you. His love is beyond words and beyond our little thoughts, isn't it?
Deletethank God for that!
DeleteThat's the crux of it, right? If the world truly understood "who dwells in our souls." America~ take note! World~ take note!
ReplyDelete"Intimacy with God is not for the saints only. It is for all of us." Another way of looking at it: it is only for the saints, but we are all supposed to be saints.
ReplyDeletehttp://contemplativehomeschool.wordpress.com
Faith-based education, Carmelite spirituality
x I look foward to this "series" having just read Mertons - The Seven Story Mountain. x
ReplyDeleteThank you, Noreen and Connie and Magsmuse. Amen to the "take note"s!! And Connie, I am very struck by your other way of looking at it. Indeed, we are all called to be saints, and if we don't do so, we are letting down not only ourselves and the Body of Christ, but God Himself. A sobering thought. Let's go for it, and not settle for anything less. When you think about it, anything less is a really horrible less, isn't it. Hmm. That thought might turn into a post......
ReplyDeleteNancy,
ReplyDelete'Have we looked at this sort of thing here before? Of course. But this is a blog, and people pop in and out of it. And anyway: by now you know I like "series!"'
As a new reader, I am glad you are returning to an old topic. I am so looking forward to your next series of posts!
God bless.
And Sue, I am SO GLAD you're here! Thank you!
DeleteNancy, I love a good series! And this is where my heart longs to be living: in the non 'watered down wishy-washy version of monasticism' and understanding what it's true elements are.
ReplyDeleteBlessings always and +
Thanks, Caroline. It's where my heart longs to be as well!
DeleteNancy, I can't wait to read your new series! And like Caroline and the others, I hate wishy-wash, so I'm very eager for the beautiful and wise things you will share with us. I smile when I think of how you just popped up on my blog with a comment last June, and then I found you and an absolute treasure of Catholic spirituality...and lots of laughs too. Happy New Year, dear friend. God bless you always! xo
ReplyDeletePatricia, I'm awfully glad I did comment on your blog :) back then, and I thank you bunches for popping over here!
DeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to your new series on monasticism. Today's post is a great start. Thank you for helping us see that living the essence of monasticism is not only possible, but even necessary for those of us in the world
God bless.
Nancy,
ReplyDeleteYour blog is an inspiration to me! The monastic life is something I've always felt called to and I'm trying to find ways to live it in my daily life. I'm glad you're doing a series on the topic. I'm always hungry to learn more.
Thank you, Karinann and Miriam. I welcome (ask for) your prayers that these efforts be inspired and led by Our Lord Jesus. He is the only One who can draw us on and lead us! Thanks so much.
ReplyDeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteThese quotes are great. I especially like the one from Dom Hubert- yes the world does seem to come up from the floor boards at times. Guarding our senses and our hearts is so important, but also difficult at times. The devil always finds a new way to mask those worldly values and ideas.
Thank you for providing the Prayer and reflection questions. They are good prompts for prayer journals.
God bless.
Thank you so much, my friends.
ReplyDeleteOh Nancy, I do! I do struggle with the world's standards and expectations; I am afraid of being left behind or forgotten. I don't really understand why, because I don't want a worldly life, and yet there are times I question why I'm not doing more to pursue security or stability.
ReplyDeleteI know that doesn't make any sense to anyone who isn't lost in my head, but I wanted you to know that Dom Hubert's analogy of the sea is beautiful. I will use it for encouragement, so thank you for sharing it with us.
Actually, that makes perfect sense to me, Tess. Afraid of being left behind or forgotten... I think that sums up the lure of the world and "its ways." At least, it does for me. Thanks so much.
DeleteOnce you get a taste of heaven, of the Presence of God, your huger grows even larger.. I am in Him and God on is in me like a joyful burning flame. I can feel the burning physically in my chest. I am united with the Trinity- Spirit to spirit.
ReplyDeleteI understand. Thanks be to God, and thank you for sharing this.
DeleteOh Nancy, what beautiful quotations..I couldn't choose a favorite, as I loved them all. As we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord tomorrow, and bring to a close this beautiful season of focusing on His coming to us in His Sacred Humanity, I find myself in such awe of the Infinite Love of a God Who has no need of us...and yet seems as though He cannot live without us. Imagine the depths to which He descended in assuming our nature...and yet He transforms and elevates that very nature by partaking in it with us. So we are all so much more than we would have been if we had been only the children of Adam, even if he had not sinned. Thank you so much for sharing all those heart stirring quotations! Love you xo
ReplyDeleteYes, the depths He descended to.... imagine. What Love He has. Thank you, Patricia, and I know that together we thank GOD. xoxo
DeleteI could weep- I thought I became a CATHOLIC so I could become a contemplative nun- Nine kids later it is obvious that God knew what I needed to become whole and loving but as I read your quotes, I see that I AM a contemplative- just a simple one. God smiles at me and I grin back at Him, a Person, a Spirit who is infiltrating ever cell in my body in spite of myself
ReplyDeleteHow beautiful. Thank you for sharing this with us.
DeleteI'm so glad you're sharing this, Nancy...the quotes help to spur me understand even more what I'm hungering for. Blessings always +
ReplyDeleteCaroline, when the very wise priest (I mentioned him several posts ago) told me to study Orders of consecrated life, I took it on as an assignment. It took me more than a year to copy quotes from a number of books (more than half of them borrowed), and sent me on a journey that did just what you said... helped me understand even more what I was hungering for. The quotes remain in a binder, printed out in dim dot-matrix (this was THAT long ago!), and I cherish every dot. I'm glad to be able to share these with others who hunger as well!
DeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying your series of posts (thank you!) but haven't any constructive thoughts to share. Would you please say a prayer for me? I seem to have lost my sense of peace. Strange how the world and life can look so beautiful one day, and the next all I can see is conflict and insecurity. God bless you!
Sue, I've just finished a bit of prayer for you, and will continue on after I write this. You description of how life can look from day to day describes so much of what I sometimes struggle with. One day a difficulty I might be facing seems like no big deal.... the very next day it becomes all I can see. I'm not always so quick to find the "view through the grille!" My prayer for you will continue, and may God bless you... a LOT.
DeleteThank you so much Nancy!
DeleteI have felt like withdrawing behind that grille away from the hurts and pressures of the world. But I've just had the answer to my problem: "Nothing Matters But Christ." I shall continue to think and pray about that. Thank you! So much going on in my head at the moment. I know I'm not making any sense at all! I appreciate your prayer very much, and will pray for you.
May God bless you!
Thank you for praying for me also... how kind of you. I have spent a busy evening, with you very much in mind, as I tried to imitate your resurrecting of archived posts. I did this with my Breadbox Letters blog. I couldn't figure out how to do what you'd done (I am NOT computer savvy), so just did it "however it came out," managing to get maybe 7 older posts down on the sidebar with pictures. So thanks for sharing your idea.
DeleteNow I pray as I settle down - that Our Lord will grant you a special gift of peace today. God bless!
I needed this- it is ALL about Christ-thank-you; I can get so caught up in details, extraneous stuff. In the end all the remains is love and God
ReplyDeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteIn reference to your post "Nothing Matters But This," I repeat what I've shared with you MANY times, "The Cloistered Heart" is what caused the 'germ' within me to burst forth and grow in reference to all things "monastic."
For this, I am forever thankful, and the journey continues!
Thanks for your posts on the monastic life. It's helped me to find my own inner sanctuary. It's so nice to know I'm not alone in my spiritual walk.
ReplyDeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteThis is such a good reminder that Christ in the Center of all of our lives as Christians. No matter our state in life, Christ should always be at the center. Your writings on the Cloistered heart demonstrate this so beautifully and clearly. For me, nurturing the germ of the cloistered heart comes from periods of silent prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament, but also through prayerful reading of Scripture.
Thank you, my dear friends! It means SO MUCH to me to know the Lord is working through the posts.... it's the best thing I could hear about them. I love that we can ALL know we're not alone in our spiritual walks. We're in different places, in some cases half a world apart, yet in the Heart of Jesus there is no distance. And as we all know, it can be tough to live in a way that's "against the grain" of what so many are living. I thank God for giving us the support of one another... just by knowing each other is there, trying to live for God in the midst of this upside down and backwards crazy world. I am privileged to keep everyone here in prayer, and again - I'm so thankful for you!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for helping me start the weekend right, with Francis de Sales, whom my sister, also a writer, likes to call "our sponsor." I pray I may live according to the quote today!
"Our sponsor" - I love that! May he pray for us.
DeleteI found St. Francis' writings to be a "phase" in my life. I needed his uplifting and instructional words, kind of like the "phase" when Thomas a'Kempis' words mattered so much to me. But strengthened, I had to move on from there. Occasionally, like all good books, I go back for a re-charge, but I found much of Francis' writings "stick" after a while. Common sense things do.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I love about the saints is the variety in their different writings and examples. Like you, I've found that particular saints strike me more in some phases of my life. I thank God that He has provided these human beings to help us along the path!
DeleteI need to also! Thanks so much, Colleen.
ReplyDeleteOh, what a beautiful post, what beautiful words to meditate on. Thank you for sharing these that you hold close to your heart. As one trying to live behind the grille with a cliser union to our Lord, in an altogether busy world, those lines often blur for me. St France's must have known that. I am so thankful for his wisdom and instructions. Praise be to God! And thank you for sharing (I feel the hand of God so strongly in your writings. You truly are a treasure! God bless!)
ReplyDeletePaul, what generous words... thank you. Oh yes, the lines blur so easily, don't they (as I write this, I have a mental image of a really blurry grille). God is so good to help us along, and to give us saints like Francis to help light our path!
DeleteNancy,
ReplyDelete"..in profound humility toward God and great gentleness toward the neighbor." I've been feeling a lot of gentleness coming across the blogosphere towards me recently. It really is a virtue that results in joy.
I need to ponder these words more, as I should show more gentleness towards those neighbours closer to home. I have been thinking a lot about this recently. I resolve to be more gentle, and then when the virtue isn't reciprocated or (appreciated to my satisfaction!) how I long to give up! Oh I have a long way to go...
God bless!
Oh Sue, you just spoke right out of my own brain!!!!! I don't even have to say any more about it, because you just DID!! I'll just say ditto ditto ditto. Especially to "I have a long way to go" (and at the rate I'm currently plodding along, I'll have to live to be 172).
DeleteOh I love your blog. The posts are so inspirational, due to your recommendation have just bought 'A Right to be Merry'. Looking forward to reading it after I finish 'Devout life' by one of my favourites, St Francis de Sales.
ReplyDeleteThank you so very much! I hope you enjoy A Right to be Merry as much as I did (and still do). I hope you will stop by and let us know how you like it. For that matter, please stop by here at anytime, for any reason! God bless...
DeleteNancy, This call to humility by St Francis de Sales (who I hope to get to know better in time) is so close to the heart of St Benedict in the Holy Rule. Thank you for this. I love the quotes. Blessings always +
ReplyDeleteIt is like having our very own researcher, digging up all the best gems of wisdom for us.What a wonderful gift. I am sitting here writing with a smile that just gets wider and wider and joy threatening to overflow into laughter. Thank-you
ReplyDeleteThank you both! Caroline, I love St. Benedict. And Melanie, your smile is contagious... I realize that I'm grinning as I write this :)!
ReplyDelete:) right back again to you my friend
DeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteAre you reading my mind and posting just for me? The quotes you are choosing are just what I need to read. Thank you!
God bless!
Sue, thank you. I thank God that He knows what each of us needs!
ReplyDeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your pearls of wisdom. St. Frances de Sales spirituality is close to my heart... even though I'm a Franciscan. God bless you!
Sister M. Veronica, OSF
http://franciscansisterspeoria.wordpress.com/
Sister Veronica, thank you so much! I just went to your blog, and wound up putting a link to your Roe vs. Wade post on something I wrote on my other blog (TheBreadboxLetters.blogspot.com)today. I'm so glad you came to our little "parlor!!"
DeleteNancy, do you have a book of quotes from St Francis de Sales that you use, they always seem so apt for my life.
ReplyDeleteActually, I have many sources. I think I have most of St. Francis de Sales' works that are in print in English (I have a couple in French, but unfortunately can't translate those myself). Some are older editions... the sorts of old hardbacks that libraries throw away and bookworms like myself rush to rescue! But my "newer" (even if published in the '70s or '80s) paperbacks have been subject to being marked up (are you cringing yet?). And I have lists of quotes. And collections of letters and quotes. I've stored some on computer. A relative generously hand bound a book for me of a public domain edition of the Mystical Flora of St. Francis de Sales... there is a public domain link to that one and to a few other titles. Sorry if this isn't much help! I really should "catalog" all my sources and provide them, and I apologize for not doing so. Hopefully I can get to that pretty soon.
DeleteThank you!
Gasp! You mark up your books? I think that is balanced by your rescue of discarded hardbacks.
ReplyDeleteI'm catching up on Cloistered Heart reading. I always find something that speaks right to my heart, and this time it is "Using all available means", even the difficulties of my personality for the love of God. That really is 'everything', isn't ie/184381hink this means ime=20130127102008
Ooops. Caught. I forgot to mention, in my comment just before yours, that the reason I mark in "selected" paperbacks is so I can go back and re-read noted parts (am I off the hook yet?)... and that's WHY I can usually find appropriate "cloistered heart" passages fairly swiftly. Oh, but treasured hardbacks and vintage paperbacks are quite well treated around here.
DeleteI think our personality difficulties can surely be grand "available means." I have always loved the fact that the Bible does not leave out personality "challenges" of people like Peter. I can then identify and keep up hope!
Thank you, Tess!
I want to soar like an eagle as well and this post rekindled that desire
ReplyDeleteNancy...Prayers going up for you..Can I EVER identify with major computer problems..Hope you have quick resolution. Blessings +
ReplyDeleteI want to soar too, Melanie, and I'm grateful to the saints who inspire us to yield to God's winds!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Caroline... so far, so good this morning. There was an Internet problem last night, and anyone in the house who tried to get connected was kicked right off. But then the connection would come back briefly (for literally only seconds) and back and forth that went. That sort of thing happens once in awhile here (only never so badly), and I do thank you for prayer!
Ahhh, I love the 'quick trip' ~ it's always so nice to travel on a journey that someone has kindly helped lay out an itinerary, don't you think? And that is our gift in Nancy. Of that I am most assured! With a prayerful heart ~ bless all those who travel this journey with us. In Jesus' name.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Paula, for such kind words.
ReplyDeleteAnd to all: now that the new year is well underway (how did THAT happen?), I am opening a new comment post here in the parlor. See you in the post just above!