Potpourri

[The following is a more or less random selection of texts I’ve saved over the years, for one reason or another, which all have spiritual value—except, perhaps, the final one!—and some are even quite profound.  I present them here without comment, simply for your edification.]

“At some thoughts one stands perplexed—especially at the sight of men’s sin—and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that, once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.

“Every day and every hour, every minute, walk around yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. If you pass by a little child, and pass by spitefully, with ugly words or wrathful heart, you may not notice the child, but he will see you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenseless heart. You may not know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him, and it may grow, all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself an active, benevolent love. Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire; it is dearly bought; it is won by slow, long labor. We must love not only occasionally, or for a moment, but for ever.” (Fyodor Dostoevsky,  The Brothers Karamazov)

“The Spirit of God is a Spirit of peace. Even in our most serious failing, he lets us feel a pain that is tranquil, humble and trusting, and this is due precisely to his mercy. In contrast, the spirit of evil excites, exasperates, and makes us feel a kind of anger against ourselves when we fail. And yet it is towards ourselves that we should exercise charity first of all. Thus, when you are tormented by certain thoughts, this agitation never comes from God, but from the demon; for since God is a spirit of peace, he gives serenity.”  (Saint [Padre] Pio de Pietrelcina)

“Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world?  It is that we have only known the back of the world.  We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal.  That is not a tree, but the back of a tree.  That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud.  Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face?  If we could only get round in front…” (G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday)

“We ring the hollow bell of selfishness rather than absorb the stillness that surrounds the world, hovering over all the restlessness and fear of life… Is not listening to the pulse of wonder worth silence and abstinence from self-assertion? … We dwell on the edge of mystery and ignore it, wasting our souls, risking our stake in God.  We constantly pour our inner light away from Him, setting up the thick screen of self between Him and us, adding more shadows to the darkness that already hovers between Him and our wayward reason…

“How good it is to wrap oneself in prayer, spinning a deep softness of gratitude to God around all thoughts, enveloping oneself in the silken veil of song!…” [Prayer’s] drive enables us to delve into what is beneath our beliefs and desires, and emerge with a renewed taste for the infinite simplicity of the good.  On the globe of the microcosm, the flow of prayer is like the Gulf Stream, imparting warmth to all that is cold, melting all that is hard in our life.  For even loyalties may freeze to indifference if detached from the stream which carries the strength to be loyal… Prayer revives and keeps alive the rare greatness of some past experience in which things glowed with meaning and blessing.  It remains important, even when we ignore it for a while, like a candlestick set aside for the day.  Night will come, and we shall again gather round its tiny flame…

“To begin to pray is to confront the word, to face its dignity, its singularity, and to sense its potential might.  And it is the spiritual power of the praying man that makes manifest what is dormant in the text… The words must not fall off our lips like dead leaves in the autumn.  They must rise like birds out of the heart into the vast expanse of eternity… In our own civilization, in which so much is being done for the cause of the liquidation of language, the realm of prayer is like an arsenal for the spirit, where words are kept clean, holy, full of power to inspire and to keep us spiritually alive… In crisis, in moments of despair, a word of prayer is like a strap we take hold of when tottering in a rushing street car which seems to be turning over…” (Abraham Heschel, Man’s Quest for God)

“The most serious thing about sin is that, once chosen, it remains constant and sticks to the sinner.  Unless help comes from outside, from above, unless he receives grace, man cannot get rid of it… Sin is so multifarious that it can always dazzle with new images, offer or pretend to offer new conditions to beguile man’s boredom… As long as he lives in his sin, actually, the sinner will always excuse himself.  Only when he receives grace not to do it any more can he realize that he deserves God’s wrath, but precisely in this realization he is permitted to lay hold of grace.  Whoever acknowledges guilt leaves the wrath of God behind.” (Adrienne von Speyr, The Letter to the Colossians)

“Long periods of well-being and comfort are in general dangerous to all. After such prolonged periods, weak souls become incapable of weathering any kind of trial. They are afraid of it. Yet it is a fact that difficult trials and sufferings can facilitate the growth of the soul. I know there is a widespread feeling that if we highly value suffering this is masochism. On the contrary, it is a significant bravery when we respect suffering and understand the value of the burdens it places on our soul.” (Alexandr Solzhenitsyn)

“I am, indeed, far from agreeing with those who think all religious fear is barbarous and degrading and demand that it should be banished from the spiritual life.  Perfect love, we know, casts out fear.  But so do several other things—ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity.  It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out our fear.” (C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night)

“Lord! What a strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad!” (G.K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill)