|
|
Christian Spirituality Resources
by Philip St. Romain
What follows is the collection of proverbs and maxims originally published in Pathways to Serenity (1986, Liguori Publ.), which is now out of print. Download, read and enjoy! If you'd like to express your gratitutde in writing or with a donation to the "St. Romain family fund," you will find an order form for doing so on the resources page.
It is suggested that you read a few of these reminders each night at bedtime or at a quiet break during the day, repeating them to yourself from time to time. These points concern eleven essential areas of the spiritual life:
1. One hundred years from now, your body shall lie rotting in a grave with the worms, and it is likely that 99.999999% of the world's population will not even know or care that you ever lived.
2. People of today are like voyagers on an ocean cruise who are busy partying, decorating their cabins, playing shuffleboard, and planning future trips when, all the while, the ocean liner is slowly sinking.
3. Nothing is forever except God. Your bad moods shall pass, and your difficult circumstances shall one day cease. Everything shall perish in the end; only God shall remain. What you have worried over shall be no more. Only that which is rooted in God shall persist.
4. The universe is God's farm, and the people of the world are all seeds of sorts, sewn by God to ripen when the time is right.
5. There are five challenges you must face. If any are neglected, growth will be distorted. Love God above all else.
Work hard, using your talents for good.
Enjoy what you can when you can.
Accept sufferings when they come and learn from them.
6. Life is loving, working, enjoying, and suffering,
one moment at a time,
in God's presence.
That's all there is!
7. God is your joy, ever enough.
Love is the way, peace is the guide.
Love now, live in the Lord.
1. Are you at home? If not, then who is?
2. God is with you, loving you now. Receive, then, the courage to open your eyes and start moving!
3. In him you live and move and have your being. If you wish to see God, you need simply open your eyes.
4. Life means placing one foot in front of the other,
One moment at a time,
walking in eternity.
5. Take on a gentle, loving, presence, now. (A consciousness focusing phrase.)
6. Do not project past or present joys and sorrows into the future. Leave the future open in hope, and you will remain in reality.
Your smile, your face, the sun in your hair:
The stars at night, the ground under feet;
The water you drink, the food that you eat;
Birds and sky and sea and breeze,
Lovers and children, flowers and trees.
Everywhere miracles: all around!
Open your heart, hear their sounds.
8. Just be here now with God; there's no need for a fixed agenda -- this is always enough!
9. There is indeed such a thing as an error in judgment, but it is not so common as errors in awareness. Lapses in consciousness account for most traffic accidents, broken appointments, and keys locked inside cars.
10. Spiritual consciousness cannot be sustained so long as you retain ideas of win-or-else competitiveness, deservingness, pretentiousness, and ambition -- all of which the powers of sin support.
11. Preoccupations are largely about fear. They absorb your time and make you unaware of reality.
12. Enlightenment does not mean that you will not ever get tired or discouraged -- only that you will be aware in your tiredness and discouragement.
13. Ego awareness naturally moves toward pain. Eliminate pain -- at least the mental/emotional kind -- and awareness will become free to enjoy a larger reality.
1. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you stand for Christ.
2. The truly natural human being is the mystic. What most people call ""natural'' is really carnal perversion.
3. Lose yourself in love for anything, and you will find something for your Self. Lose yourself in the love of God and you will find your essential Self.
4. Self-reflection can help you to realize successes, pitfalls, and errors, but it cannot produce self- realization. To attempt realization through self-reflection is like a mirror gazing at itself.
5. Anything can be a pretense for the false self, but sham piety is the most dangerous of all. A false self can take on the trappings of religion and congratulate itself on having realized the Christ-self.
6. If you can't find yourself, don't just sit there waiting for self-realization. Get moving, and do what you're doing in loving awareness. It will come to you in action and movement.
7. You are not your thoughts, you are not your feelings, you are not even what you have been, nor what you imagine yourself to be. You are the one who is loved by God. You are the awareness of God's love for you.
8. The false self is a prison, where fear reigns supreme.
9.Investing energy in a pretense is like building a house in quicksand, or a cardboard bridge over a river.
10. The nature and business of the Christ self shall always remain hidden from those who still retain a sense of deservingness, sufficiency, and honor.
11. If you strive to live constantly in God's presence, you will not get lost as you go from one project to the next; for God will be your home and the integrity of your identity. 12.Apart from the life of the body, a toe is only a decaying piece of flesh. Attached to the body, it attains its true toeness by doing what a toe is supposed to do. 13.You have no real self outside of God. The self which you create and nurture apart from God is merely an illusion. 14.The truth is not, ""Christ lives in you,'' but ""You live in Christ.'' He is not yours, you are his. You are the clay, he is the potter.
15. You are a brain cell in God's consciousness. Having awakened, you are now privileged to see as he sees, to love as he loves. The old cellular structure remains; the life within it is different. New wine, new wineskins!
16. In the small self, feelings are reactive to ""you'' and ""yours'' in the narrowest sense. In the higher self, feelings are responsive to ""we'' and ""ours.'' In the no-self, there are no personal feelings -- only a steady, serene compassion, which is bliss.
17. The Christ self is awakened by Love, nurtured in Love, and expanded in Love. In Love it lives and moves and has its being.
18. Most people discover the love of God through the love of other people. The mystic, however, discovers love of others primarily through the love of God. 19.Use no adjectives in reference to yourself, for all are limiting. Instead, simply say: ""I have gifts, I have weaknesses, I am loved!''
1. If God is experienced as an object of the self, there is the possibility that this object is merely the creation of the self. This is why in the purest experiences of God, there is no sense of self whatsoever. Rather, the self returns after the experience, vaguely aware that something mysterious has happened.
2. God is the Force that binds together the fragments of your life into harmonious meaning, and impels you to bond with others in love.
3. God is the essential core of all that exists. To empathize with anything in the creation, then, is to experience something of God.
4." "Where is the ocean?'' asks the fish. ""Where is God?'' inquires the intellectual. (Adapted from a proverb by Anthony de Mello).
5. The experience of God is like the experience of water to a person who is floating within it.
6. God's presence is always new, yet familiar; extraordinary, yet common; fresh, yet aged.
7. You are like a sailboat. God is the wind and the sea. Sometimes the wind blows; sometimes the sea moves; at other times clamness prevails. Do not cling to intensity or calm, but allow the wind and sea to simply move you where they will.
8. "Those who know do not say, and those who say, do not know'' (Tao te Ching). This statement brings home the utter futility of trying to fully describe the experience of God.
1. If a feeling persists despite your surrender of its issues to Providence, it is probably pointing to an issue you need to work on.
2. The only sure thing about pleasant feelings is that you shall want them back when they are gone.
3. Use your common sense. (If, during prayer, you find yourself growing sleepy, it probably means that you are tired.)
4. Just because you have the opportunity to do something good does not mean that you should do it. Is it God's will?
5. Test your feelings before you analyze their roots. To move beyond feelings too quickly is to invite intellectual stagnation.
6. Do not evaluate your spiritual exercises under any other criteria than their ability to help you to love in this moment.
7 .If you surrender yourself to God with the full intent of doing his will -- however unpleasant it may be -- you may rest assured that God has accepted your surrender and is even now drawing you in the direction you need to go.
8. Were you ever confused? In turmoil? If a person came to you in such a frame of mind, what would you recommend? Listen to your Inner Adviser for the answer.
9. The true mystic desires only to love others and leave them free. The false mystic speaks much of God, less of love, and very little of freedom.
10. Do you seek the will of God? You may say yes only if you are willing to do the hard thing.
11. When struggling with others in a conflict, ask: ""Whose problem is whose?'' Accept what is yours to work with and let go of the rest.
12. "Where there's a will, there's a way,'' reads an old adage. The question is: will to what? and which way?
13. Crooked means do not produce holy ends. Never! Loving means produce Kingdom ends. Always!
14. If loving brings about the destruction of certain matters, then those matters needed to be destroyed. (Adapted from a saying by Leo Tolstoy.)
15. If your purpose is to get rich or become famous, you may choose many avenues in pursuit of your goal. God, however, is in no way bound to show you the right way. If, however, you are striving to grow in virtue, and you are open to God's will, then God is bound by his own promises to provide guidance and support.
16. If you are not sure about the morality of certain behavior, it is probably immoral.
17. After surrendering everything to God in prayer, dream your dreams, ask your questions, and note your concerns.
18. Feelings teach the Ego balance between the extremes that it may find its center and so become rooted in God. Contemplative prayer is the rooting.
19. In the now, there are options; but choices are made in awareness on the basis of loving preferences -- now this, later that. Who can plan such actions in advance? Who would want to? Go with the flow!
20. Beware the ""project'' of holiness, or ""attaining'' virtue. These are attempts of the false self to expand its control into the arena of the spiritual.
21. Your human project is the most important of all, including your prayer, marriage, parenting, work, and even religious orientations. When making decisions, keep this large perspective in mind.
1. Theology is the recipe; prayer, the eating of the cake. It is much better to eat cake than it is to read recipes about how to make it (although there can be no cake without a recipe).
2. If you ever want to lose interest in ministry, all you have to do is stop praying.
3. Solitude, silence, and surrender: these constitute the essentials of contemplative prayer. Without all three, prayer will be shallow.
4. Prayer that does not change you is merely a resting in your own spirit. Beware the feeling of self- satisfaction because you have ""prayed.''
5. To pray with others is to allow the Trinity to become manifest among human beings.
6. In prayer, seek only to grow in the love and knowledge of God and you shall never be disappointed.
7. To say that the gift of tongues is ""not for everyone'' is to err grievously. Why should a prayer gift be only for some? And who does not need God's gifts? The gift of tongues may well be for many the key to opening up the spiritual life, because those who can surrender their tongues to God in prayer will quickly learn to surrender the whole of themselves.
8 .Most people who say ""everything I do is prayer'' are people who know nothing about prayer, and who merely wish to excuse themselves from the discipline of prayer. There is no spirituality that will bear loving fruit without prayer. This is the witness of the saints and the masters.
9. Anything can be prayer if done in loving presence. You can be fed all day long! But this possibility is only for those who have become empty through surrender in ""formal'' prayer.
10. Are you confused and afraid? Does everything seem so superficial? On your knees, then; and don't get up until you know who you are!
11. It is true that prayer helps you to love, but such a pragmatic view is not the main justification for prayer. You pray because it is good that creatures commune with their Creator, and find themselves in their Creator.
12. Place no constraints on what God wants to do through you and in you. In God, all things are possible.
13. In prayer, you confront the Spotless Mirror that reflects back to you who you really are. Prayer is thus the barometer that measures the quality of your life. Peaceful prayer reflects a peaceful lifestyle; turmoil encountered in prayer indicates a need for lifestyle changes.
14. Do not discuss your prayer with a spiritual director who does not pray, or who is not as serious about prayer as you are. Such a person will distort your growth. It is much better to progress in prayer without spiritual direction, than to submit yourself to a poor director.
15.Remember this about contemplative prayer: The wind blows the sails,
The wind subsides,
the streams carry.
The oarsmen rest.
1. What God wants most in this world is a heart that is open to receiving his gifts, for he gives lavishly for the pure pleasure of seeing people become joyful. Such is the nature of his love, and the main impediments to receiving his gifts are feelings of self-sufficiency and deservingness, and a desire to control the outcome.
2. Honesty -- what an absolute value! If anything is to happen, you must be honest about everything -- at least to yourself. Offer no pretense; practice frankness instead. Freed by truth, you are forgiven by love.
3. "An idiot is someone who does not know what you learned only five minutes ago.'' This is the way a proud person speaks.
4. If you think you are better than others, it is because you have forgotten about your pride and selfishness. The saint, who is relatively free of pride, looks upon others not in judgment, but compassion, aware of the bondage that grace has transformed.
5. Pretentious piety is an abomination. It is far better to say nothing about your beliefs than to be proud that you have shared them.
6.Banish the word "deserve" from your vocabulary. You are not saved because you ""deserve'' heaven, but because you have accepted it as gift.
7. It is true that you stand for Christ in all that you do. But you are not his credibility. Honesty in imperfection is much more pleasing to God than a pretense of perfection ""for the sake of Christ.''
8. The starting point in the spiritual life is ""I am nothing, God is everything.'' Beware those so-called gurus who forget this truth.
9. It is impossible for people to attain God by ""trying,'' because their very act of ""trying'' is precisely the reason they do not attain God.
10. Nature abhors a vacuum. A heart that has surrendered all self-will shall draw into its emptiness the very heart of God.
11. When feeling grandiose, take out a biology book and contemplate the structure of a kidney, or an eyeball, or the citric acid cycle. Did you design these things?
1. Let go (emotionally) of everything you cannot handle. Focus your energy only on what is in your power to handle now.
2. Prefer no other reality than now. Choose to do nothing more than what Reality calls you to do now in the service of love. Do this, and you will live in serenity.
3. If your desires conflict with the loving demands of Reality, you had better adjust to Reality, or else you will be filled with resentment toward the cause of the conflict.
4. God gives each person a share of the Cross to teach human powerlessness and the utter futility of carnal attachments.
5. Interfere in the lives of others only out of love for them. It is a dangerous thing to tamper with destiny.
6. Strike a powerful blow against your vanity by doing something kind for others -- without letting them or anyone else know about it.
7. "God is free to do his own will on his own level when my heart, being disinterested, is bent on neither this nor that.'' Meister Eckhart.
8. Relax! God is looking after the world and your own life even while you sleep and when you pray.
9. You must even let go of the consequences of your actions. Nothing that you have done is so bad that it cannot be forgiven, and nothing so good that cannot be corrupted. Keep moving forward. Don't look back.
10. People are miserable because they want what they cannot have, or what they should not have. Put to death all desiring save for an increase in love and you will be happy.
1. You do not know all the possibilities and probabilities of life. Therefore, you might as well believe that God does.
2. Nothing can really hurt you, except despairing of God's love. Even suffering and death have been brought into the divine economy.
3. You say you believe in God. Even the devil believes as much. But do you believe in a good God, who is already intimately involved in your life?
4. Faith does not bring God into your soul, but opens your awareness to the Reality that has always been there. God does not come to you; he has never left you.
5. You already have everything you need for doing what you must to do in this moment. (A consciousness focuser.)
6. Christ is risen; the ultimate victory is assured; God will save the world. Your fearful vigilance is merely wasted energy.
7. Do you believe that God's will is your happiness? If not, then whose will is?
8. The absence of God is only a feeling, not a metaphysical truth. Know that God is with you even when your feelings do not sense this.
9. If your main fear before God is self-annihilation, do not be afraid. What God kills, he raises even more gloriously!
10. On an experiential level, faith is that quality of awareness that is alert to God's connection with the Self and all of creation. Because this quality of awareness is not merely manufactured by the Ego, it is called
1. The spiritually awakened mind is none other than the ordinary, everyday mind, but free from all anxiety and illusions of separateness. In such a mind, all knowledge is seen in the context of love. This is wisdom.
2. The environment can influence thoughts and beliefs. Therefore, the environment is extremely important!
3. To know and not to do is not yet to know. Instead, it is mental paralysis.
4. Human culture is ultimately an expression of mind. If there are problems with these cultures, it is because there are problems in the minds that created them.
5. Mystical consciousness cannot be sustained in a mind that tries to manipulate truth for its own ends. This is why honesty is one of the absolute values.
6. Theology is the map; spirituality is the road; life is the journey.
7. Life is an experience to be lived, not a problem to be solved.
8. When you have progressed in theological knowledge to the point where few burning questions remain, you can be sure that the time has arrived to turn more seriously to the journey inward.
9. To truly understand something, you must stand-under it, or empathize with it. Therefore, empathy is the highest form of knowledge; contemplative prayer is the most exalted human experience.
10. Thoughts, beliefs, and convictions: these must, finally, direct your life. But allow yourself to experience Reality in as many modes as possible -- music, conversation, human love, bodily sensations, prayer, play, aesthetic delights, and so forth. Surrender yourself fully in each of these modes, knowing that they all teach something about God.
11. You learn nothing by experience. You learn only through reflecting on experience.
12. "Yes, but<...>'' Is this what you always say of your God-concept, or your ideas of another person, or, indeed, about anything. There is an inherent danger in labels, in that they become substitutes for reality.
13. What makes a good idea good is its power to move you to serenity and integration without depriving others of their legitimate needs. A bad idea produces the opposite effects.
14.The undefiled creation (a world notmanipulated by human beings) is a partial reflection of the consciousness of God. To know creation is to know something about God. Even so, God's innermost nature cannot be known except through God's self-revelation. This is the meaning of Christ: Persons who know Christ know God's inner nature, and their own nature as well.
1. Love is being and doing at the same time. In love, all dualisms are dissolved.
2. To be committed to another in awareness, honesty, and benevolence: This is the best way to love.
3. Love without empathy is do-goodism, which is ultimately a form of pride. If you cannot love people, than leave them alone!
4. If you desire anything other than love for another, you can eventually justify any imaginable cruelty toward this person while invoking your principles as justification.
5. Listen, clarify, empathize, affirm. Listen, clarify, empathize, affirm. Listen, clarify, empathize, affirm. Only after doing so may you confront and negotiate.
6. Contact with another is an opportunity to increase love and strengthen the Body.
7. The Body lives by love. Every time you extend yourself in love, the life of God enters into the process to join wayward cells together in ever-novel and extraordinarily beautiful arrangements.
8.What should you do around people? Love them. Who manages best around people? A lover.
9. "But what does it mean to be a lover?'' you ask. Spend your life with this question and you shall have passed your time very well.
10. You can love others without liking them, although it is much better to do both. It seems that Jesus did not particularly like pompous and self-righteous people. Still, there can be no doubt that he loved them -- that he extended himself to relate with them in a manner that would lead them to growth.
11. An open heart is the wellspring of love.
Like a river it flows,
Always present, always new.
13. God loves you all the time. That is the witness of Christ. Believe nothing else about God and you shall have grasped the heart of the Gospel.
14. The closed heart and the narrow mind -- these are the primary obstacles to the working of the Spirit. These, too, are the primary characteristics of the small self.
15. That which you love in yourself and about yourself you shall also love in others. This is why the first great commandment is to love God above all. When you love God thus, you are grasped by God, and you know that others, too, belong to God.
16. In the last analysis, there is no conflict between love of God, self, and neighbor. Love is one.
17. Self love is different from selfishness in that self love means looking after your legitimate needs in gratitude for God's gifts, and in such a manner as not to hurt yourself and others -- all with a view of returning to others with richer blessings to share. In other words, self love is open to love relationships; selfishness remains closed against them.
18. The deepest love is not possible without complete self forgetfulness -- not of the dependent kind, where you give up self to cling to the other, but of the transcendent kind, where you annihilate self in complete identification with the other.
19. Listen: you can never receive enough of anything to fill the depths of your being and satisfy your deepest hungers for security, pleasure, and peace. It is only in giving of self that you will receive what you need in these areas.
20. Love is also a willingness to receive the gifts of others, that you might be joined with them, and allow them to experience the joy of giving. No receivers, no givers. 21.If, for one second, you are not moved with compassion for those who are hurting, but instead feel a sense of superiority toward them, it means that your small self is yet intact, and you'd best plead for mercy and the grace to love your brothers and sisters in Christ.
22. Capacity for empathy is the surest sign of spiritual health, for empathy presupposes the internal emptiness in which the divine fullness may rest.
Home | Resources | Contact Us