This room looks a bit elegant for a monastery parlor, do you think?
The truth is that the first monastery parlor I ever entered was not unlike this scene. Remove the chandelier, dial the opulence down half a notch, and we're left with a room that's amazingly similar to the one I was ushered into when I was seventeen.
I was then a prospective boarding school student at an Academy run by semi-cloistered nuns. The students' classrooms and dorms were not so elegant, and the Sisters' cloister (as I would see years later) was really quite plain. But visitors were treated to an elegant welcome in velvet-draperied parlors.
It is now many years later, and I, for one, look upon this room with a touch of nostalgia. I also find its painted chairs appealing. They look just right for a few minutes of online visiting.
Shall we chat?
As always, you may return to the Cloistered Heart blog by clicking on this line.
Your reflections on this parlour in combination with the post showing St. Augustine's heart on flame bring tears to my eyes and trigger a deep longing within me for more of Him, His all consuming Presence.
ReplyDeleteThe fire of His love. I want, no I NEED nore heat, more fire because it is slowly melting the fear and tension, leaving only a Love which allows me to relax in Him
What beautiful words, Melanie. And what a beautiful longing. A true gift.
Deletehey St JANE??? never heard of her- those quotes are BRILLIANT
DeleteMelanie, I hope you were able to glance at the link for more info on St. Jane (Jeanne). It's estimated that she wrote no fewer than eleven thousand letters in her lifetime, and she wrote other things as well(for the growing Community of the Visitation). Eleven thousand letters, all by hand, all sent by carrier or whatever-they-had-then!! All the while helping found a thriving Order, after having been a wife and widowed mother and a loyal helper to a difficult father-in-law. Whew! I'm glad I could help introduce you to a cherished friend :).
Deletejust looked at the link and Jane and I we connected right away
DeleteThank you, Colleen. Those words from the Catechism have found a home in my own heart :)!
ReplyDeleteI love the quotes from St. Jane. I didn't know she had four children, as I do. My favorite quote was, "You must adhere to this practice of looking at God within you and it will absorb all others." - St. Jane de Chantal I must look up what scripture the last quote was from. "My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways." Proverbs 23:26 Is it somewhere else as well?
ReplyDeleteThank you for the beautiful post. I've only by chance stumbled upon writings of St. Jane's, and I think I'll be more deliberate in the future.
Colleen, I have no idea which Scripture St. Jane would have been referring to, because the quote did not include it. I was quoting from a privately printed edition of Jane's letters, a cherished copy I was given some years ago by a Visitation nun friend. I will probably be quoting more from that book in days to come (already I use it a lot).
DeleteI also want to take this opportunity to tell you that for weeks now, when I click on "Inadequate Disciple," I get the title and background.... but nothing else. Absolutely everything has disappeared!! No posts; nothing. It's like the template itself has vanished...???
So I'm especially glad you stopped by today. And thank you!
Colleen, I was able to get to your blog once today, as you would know from a comment I left. And now it is gone again! The background picture and title are there, but that's it. !!!?!
DeleteThe quote from St. Jane on May 25 reminded me of Plato's idea of "forms" or "ideals". His idea was that for everything here there is an "ideal" of that thing that surpasses it like reality surpasses a shadow. That doesn't work particularly well for a chair (an example he used of how it works), but it does work well for spiritual things. Just like how St. Jane said that "this life is only a phantom of life, / and its pleasures / only the shadows of pleasures."
ReplyDelete(Just a caveat, I didn't like much of anything else from Plato. "The Republic" isn't necessarily totally serious, though, so my dislike might just be a skewed view of the man. But he certainly had an irritating writing style.)
Oh, and I checked and I'm able to get to "Inadequate Disciple".... So I would guess it's just your problem? I wonder what the problem is, though.
Plato is someone I have never read, although certainly I've seen quotes and references here and there.
DeleteI just clicked onto Inadequate Disciple and it came right up. It had been gone for ages!! I wonder if it's a Blogger problem? My sidebars on The Breadbox Letters started disappearing off and on nearly a year ago. Other peoples' did also, and after a bit I realized it was generally at (including) and below the followers' gadget... I'd just installed one on that blog. I still notice blogs whose sidebars disappear off and on (often right at that gadget), but Inadequate Disciple was the first time the entire contents of a blog had vanished for months!
Thank you for letting me know, and thanks most of all for stopping by in the parlor today!
Well, hello Nancy. Though I have been away for quite some time now because of the many twists and turns my life has taken lately (a sebatical of sorts) I am returning to the cloister, and what a warm welcome I did receive when seeing the beautiful and elegant parlor waiting here for me. I feel so at home almost like I wasn't even gone. I look forward to being with my sisters again and will try my very best not to be drawn away. I missed you all so much and can't wait to continue to grow on my walk with the Lord as you all bless me with your words of wisdom and sharing about your own journeys. Thank you and God Bless...Love, Joy
ReplyDeleteI am now playing catch up being a little behind. I love, love, love Father Barron's explanation of The Trinity video. I think that is probably the best, shortest, easiest to understand and most agreeable definition I have ever seen or heard. I will always remember the Sender...the Sent...and the Love in which the Sent was sent. Thank you, Nancy, for sharing that with us. God Bless
ReplyDeleteJoy, what a... well, what a JOY (!)... to find you here today! Hope you're settled comfortably into a cushy chair, which as you can see has just been sitting here waiting for you :). Thanks for letting us know you're here. I assume you'd like your iced tea sweetened?
DeleteWhat a wonderful hostess you are, Nancy, making me feel so welcome by offering me the cushy chair and a glass of sweetened ice tea..It makes me think somewhat of the post today on the Visitation...What a wonderful reunion that must have been between Elizabeth and Mary and the grand and wonderful news that they each had to share with one another..I imagine that Elizabeth must have fashioned herself to be the perfect hostess to the most important guests..Can you just imagine what those two women talked about and confided in each other over the next three months.. It had to be powerful and Divinely inspired with the holy babies that they each carried and the important role they would play in each other's lives, the profound graces and blessings that they were destined to bring to all of mankind..What joy and excitement there must have been between the two of these very Holy and Godly women...As you said, we can all reach out to others with that same joy so that they might see the Jesus that we bear within ourselves and desire the same in their lives..What a privilege and honor we have to carry Jesus in our Cloistered Hearts to others. God Bless you.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you, too, Joy - and yes, it is indeed a privilege to carry Him. I mean: think of it! Truly it is mind boggling.
DeleteIt's so good to have you here in "the parlor." Thanks so much for sharing your insights as you sip your sweet tea :)!
Hello dear Nancy, I rarely have time for tuning in let alone reading each blog these day (last term at uni) , however I noticed a physical header change as you are saved on my apple main screen along with others. Yesterday I noted the embellished Gold header which I Loved. I thought of it as perfectly glorifying God. No sooner had it come than it went and I missed it. For me it was special x mags
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU, Mags! That was exactly what I needed to hear just at the precise moment I needed to hear it! I was just considering going back to some version of that. It all takes time, as you most likely know. But here I am again, plugging away......
DeleteI just started the post on the visitation and I am in tears again- We connect on a deep soul level. Thank God that I am no longer alone or lonely. Thank God that I carry the Comforter within or I would have shattered long ago
ReplyDeleteMe too, Melanie... I would have shattered too. Thanks be to God for His amazing gift of grace.
DeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteI missed all the Loistering drama! I always fiddle around with the design of my blog while readers are coming and going. Sometimes the header or background can change a dozen times in half an hour. Once I got everything in such a muddle my blog couldn't be read properly, and it took hours for me to sort it all out. I wonder what any readers who happened to stop by thought! Maybe it's time for a complete blog overhaul while I'm waiting for some writing inspiration to hit.
I love the picture of the parlour. We used to meet Felicity, not in the parlour, but in the visitors' library. It was very plain but the nuns' hospitality made up for the austere surroundings. They always provided a beautiful afternoon tea for us, and we never left without boxes of fruit and other goodies which they thought we'd enjoy.
I realise I have not said anything intelligent or spiritually uplifting or inspiring, like all your other commenters. All those kind of thoughts seem to have deserted me, together with my writing ability. I am trying to be patient and quiet and accept where I seem to be at the moment: drifting along, going nowhere in particular. I was reading the other day how we can try too hard to attain closeness to God, when really we should be quiet and let God work within us. Well, I hope that is true because I'm not doing very well on my own efforts!
Hi, Sue! I finally managed to put on the CH blog header I wanted most of all. Just this morning, I realized how that might be accomplished, so I gave it a try. YES!! My "thank You, Lord" was probably heard all the way to Australia! I had reeeally wanted that blazing heart... whether it says anything to anyone else or not, it definitely does to me.
DeleteI was especially sheepish about changing from a light to dark background... such a major change, and as we know, it's not easy to return to the "old ways" once a template has been altered.
I suspect the parlor I was first in years ago was on the "fancy" side because the (semi-cloistered) nuns had a boarding school. It was there, in the parlor, where potential students and their parents first met the Sisters and discussed possible enrollment. It made a great first impression! I was smitten with the place immediately... with the tall old windows and maroon colored velvet curtains and the amazing heavy gold-framed original oil paintings hanging all around.
I haven't said anything spiritually uplifting here either... but I don't think we always must. Actually, I think "plain conversation" is uplifting in itself, as we share friend to friend and heart to heart, just being who we are at the moment. It sounds to me as if being patient and quiet and accepting where you are is exactly what you ARE doing right now, Sue. So I join you in prayer, that Our Lord will guide you gently in the paths of His good graces.
God bless!
O dear - you missed the Loisters?? Missed the variety of headers and mustardy backgrounds and strangely chopped-up images crawling up and down the sidebar?!? O ALAS! Well, as Scarlett O'Hara said, tomorrow's another day. Now that I've made the leap from dark to light background (I'm still gulping), we never know what mix of Art Deco/ Baroque/ cubist/ country cottage/ Michelangelo -meets-Frank Lloyd Wright might show up....
DeleteAnd I love your summer beachy look!
Beautiful changes to you blog, Nancy! Really, very very nice! I also appreciate blogs that are easy on the eyes and a pleasure to visit and its fun to try out different templates and color schemes and headers...oh my! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Gloria. It would sound awfully dramatic to say how strange I really feel about what I feel is a big shift, so I won't say it :)! My son set me up with the template in the first place, a year and a half ago, and I hadn't changed anything "foundational." I hope to get used to it. In the meantime, I feel like I've painted every wall in the "monastery" and moved all the doors! Yep, that sounds pretty dramatic....
DeleteI love you new look and Gloria is right, it is very esy on the eyes-restful, soothing with the subtle but rich paintings that draw a person in.
ReplyDeleteThank you thank you thank you!!! That means so much, especially coming from one whose blog-look I've been particularly admiring lately :)!
DeleteNancy,
ReplyDeleteI love the new look of your blog! The header is very effective. I also loved reading the St Faustina quotes. Yes! She had a cloistered heart. I understand that concept much better after reading your book.
God bless!
I like the new look, Nancy. Good job!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sue and Tess! I still "second guess" the change, but am getting used to it. Can you tell I'm not one for making huge changes??? Just today I went outside to look at major work we'd just had done on the front of our house. All new shutters, newly painted doors - things that needed doing because wood was literally cracking. Money flew out the newly shuttered windows just so friends can now come over and see that the house looks exactly the same as always has. I'd be willing to BET (and I'll win) that the next time friends come by, I can tell them something changed and they'll ask, with a puzzled look, if ....maybe we'd cut the grass...???
DeletePerhaps our blog personalities are more true to life than we know :)
It's time to shake things up... make all things new!
ReplyDeleteI want to live in the house shown in the Faustina post. What a gorgeous setting that is. Sigh.
You've managed to keep the warm and intimate feel with the changes you've made, Nancy. It used to feel cosy; now it's a little cleaner and simpler but still inviting and warm.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Tess, and thank you again :)! I want to live in that house too .. wouldn't it make a nice little hermitage..?
Deleteyou won an award, your choice out of 6
ReplyDeletehttp://themotherofnine9.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/more-fun-and-games-with-awards/
Why, thank you! I don't qualify for some, but will look over the list and requirements. And congratulations to YOU.. you have been accumulating awards while we weren't even looking :):)! Very well deserved.
DeleteThank you Nancy! I always come here to be refreshed. A lot of times, it's in the art work you pick alone. Ah...thank you again for all your hard work.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jen. I've just spent time working to "plant artwork" in our "online garden" ... perhaps as a substitute for the in-the-ground garden my back will no longer let me lean down to work in? It's good to know such "digging" is appreciated.. thank you!
ReplyDeleteAnd now - I think it's time to open a real, bona fide "summer page" in the Parlor. So further comments will show up there. "Y'all come, y'hear?"