October 15, 2009> 11:25 PM
st. theresa of avila > prepare your will Today is the feast day of St. Theresa of Avila. I've admired her writing and insights for a while. Mostly in Interior Castle. The concept she develops there of our lives as Christians being like being invited into the great castle of our King - our trip from the outer entry rooms, through to the inner rooms, and finally into the central chamber where the King Himself dwells - this has helped to form my own ideas of what the spiritual life is, how it works. Very helpful.
I can look back on several things I've written and see the influence very clearly. I hear it in how I talk about these things sometimes. God most definitely uses the other members of the Body of Christ to build us up, to teach us, inspire us. He gives us pieces of Himself through our siblings, and to them through us. He is slowly weaving us all into one unified cloth. In order for this to work properly, though, we have to be listening, paying attention.
Here are a couple or three good quotes that I have underlined in the past in Interior Castle - have fun...
"All that the beginner in prayer has to do - and you must not forget this, prepare himself with all possible diligence to bring his will into conformity with the will of God."
"Yet do not suppose God has any need of our works; what He needs is the resoluteness of our will."
"...although this work is performed by the Lord, and we can do nothing to make His Majesty grant us this favour, we can do a great deal to prepare ourselves for it."
Speaking of our union with God in that last small quote. The others, and the last quote, speak of our cooperative part in the process, which is not as we sometimes suppose. I've thought and said before, that really, all we are able to do, is to will to will the Will of God. I say "will to will" because we can't even grunt up the basic will to be in union with God on our own, without His Grace. But from the general, or prevenient (it is sometimes called) Grace given to all men, we are able to sense the Grace of God and, on a very base level, react to it - we can will to will His Will... and He moves... and the journey continues to it's completion.
So, we ourselves, don't do the actual work of transformation in our own selves. We cannot. He alone can do this work. We can do things to prepare for His working, though, and we should. We are doing that which helps to open our wills. We are stepping into the flow of the Great River, as it were. Thank you, St. Theresa, for listening in order to hear as clearly as you did - for passing those things onto us, your siblings in Christ. Pray for us, that we would hear and see and be even more.
October 15, 2009
> 11:25 PM
Today is the feast day of St. Theresa of Avila. I've admired her writing and insights for a while. Mostly in Interior Castle. The concept she develops there of our lives as Christians being like being invited into the great castle of our King - our trip from the outer entry rooms, through to the inner rooms, and finally into the central chamber where the King Himself dwells - this has helped to form my own ideas of what the spiritual life is, how it works. Very helpful.
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