Father Vianney (a.k.a. the Cure of Ars) noted how, every afternoon, his parishioner, an un-schooled farmhand, on his way back home from the fields, would enter the church, quietly take a place close to the Sanctuary and then proceed to spend a full hour there.

 

One day, having waited for his parishioner outside the church, Father Vianney asked, “Pierre, what do you do in there each day, how do you pray?”

 

“Father,” Pierre responded, “I say nothing … I just look at Him and He looks at me!” 

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Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). 

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“A pane of glass, free of anything that is not pure glass,

can be transformed into a ray of sunlight.” 

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For the faithful, persevering, seasoned Contemplative, inexorably the day comes when  ...

 

“blind nothingness”,  “negative knowledge”

 

morphs into that pane of pure glass… and he (she) is thus transformed into a ray   of the Father’s own  Son.

 

6/07

 

"The fatigue of ascetic labor...:" After lo these many years (and "Dark Nights"), that fatigue is no longer a part of my  silent Adoration!  The difference is (for lack of a better word) "palpable" !

 

7/07

 

I can no longer pick up the "Rudder" / the writings. I now abhor any such intrusion (of written material). 

 

10 / 07

 

I now want no sound in the Chapel. (In place of a timed "meditative" sound track, I have found a device that puts forth a tiny light and is set to run for either 30 or 60 minute intervals.)

I have found that the afternoon "Hour" sometimes becomes difficult simply because of physical weariness that I bring to the time of Adoration. Thus, I have decided to break that Hour into two 30 minute sessions (early afternoon and late afternoon.)