Reading is the careful study of the Scriptures, concentrating all one’s powers on it. Meditation is the busy application of the mind to seek with the help of one’s own reason for knowledge of hidden truth. Prayer is the heart’s devoted turning to God to drive away evil and obtain what is good. Contemplation is when the mind is in some sort lifted up to God and held above itself, so that it tastes the joys of everlasting sweetness.
–Guigo II (d. 1188)
A laudable exchange…
What a great laudable exchange: to leave the things of time for those of eternity, to choose the things of heaven for the goods of earth, to receive the hundred-fold in place of one, and to possess a blessed and eternal life.
–Saint Clare of Assisi (1194-1253)
Transform through contemplation…
Place your mind before the mirror of eternity. Place your soul in the brilliance of glory. Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance. And transform your whole being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation!
–Saint Clare of Assisi (1194-1253)
If you suffer…
If you suffer with Him, you will reign with Him. If you cry with Him, you will have joy with Him.If you die with Him on the cross of tribulation, you will possess the eternal dwelling place in the splendor of the saints. And your name, written in the book of life, will be glorious among men.
–Saint Clare of Assisi (1194-1253)
Love God totally…
Taste the hidden sweetness that lies within your heart which God has kept for those whose lives are tender within. Place your mind in the softness of life’s eternal flow. Place your soul in the brilliance of heaven’s endless glow; and love him totally who gave himself for your love, and you will hold him who holds all things in truth.
–Saint Clare of Assisi (1194-1253)
We become what we love…
We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God´s compassionate love for others.
–Saint Clare of Assisi (1194-1253)
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