A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation

The traditional role of God the Holy Spirit is to conform us to God the Word, Who then ushers us into the silent depths of God the Father.

He tells us to “picture ourselves aboard a boat. There are ropes joining it to some rock. We take hold of the rope and pull on it as if we were trying to drag the rock to us when in fact we are hauling ourselves and our boat toward that rock.”

If this commitment is not balanced by an operative knowledge of how much we fall short of them, we will likely struggle a great deal with the fact that others fall short of the ideal as well.

any concept that attempts to define God “becomes an idol of God and does not make God known.”

I have not met one dedicated person of prayer who walks a very dry, dark path who does not embody many of the cardinal and theological virtues, as well as many of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.13 By contrast I know many who have had quite explicit contemplative experiences yet have not integrated these experiences into a life of living faith and lov

Literally “compassion” means to feel with. The word betokens more a felt solidarity with a person than positive feelings for a particular person.

that power which is both everywhere and yet nowhere,

the pathless path of prayer knows only how to move through struggle; and the only way through is through—not around, over, under, or alongside, but through.

ideally we nourish our bodies every day and so likewise we should nourish our spirit.

Saint Teresa wants to suggest that the manner in which we pray formal, vocal prayers changes and becomes the very doorway through which we move into the silence of contemplation.