Lawrence of the Resurrection: Let Us Make Way For Grace Monday, Nov 23 2009 

CARMELITE and Lawrence of the Resurrection , , , , , Mark Armitage 5:30 pm

Lawrence of the Resurrection

He [Lawrence] complains much of our blindness; and cries often that we are to be pitied who content ourselves with so little.

God, says he, has infinite treasure to bestow, and we take up with a little sensible devotion which passes in a moment.

Blind as we are, we hinder God, and stop the current of His graces. But when He finds a soul penetrated with a lively faith, He pours into it His graces and favours plentifully.

There they flow like a torrent, which, after being forcibly stopped against its ordinary course, when it has found a passage, spreads itself with impetuosity and abundance.

Yes, we often stop this torrent, by the little value we set upon it. But let us stop it no more. Let us enter into ourselves and break down the bank which hinders it. Let us make way for grace.

Let us redeem the lost time, for perhaps we have but little left. Death follows us close, let us be well prepared for it; for we die but once, and a miscarriage there is irretrievable.

I say again, let us enter into ourselves. The time presses: there is no room for delay; our souls are at stake. I believe you have taken such effectual measures, that you will not be surprised.

I commend you for it, it is the one thing necessary. We must, nevertheless, always work at it, because not to advance, in the spiritual life, is to go back.

But those who have the gale of the Holy Spirit go forward even in sleep. If the vessel of our soul is still tossed with winds and storms, let us awake the Lord, who reposes in it, and He will quickly calm the sea.

Lawrence of the Resurrection (1614-1691): Practice of the Presence of God.

 

Lawrence of the Resurrection: Beginning to Live in God’s Presence Saturday, Nov 14 2009 

CARMELITE and Lawrence of the Resurrection , , , , Mark Armitage 2:34 pm

Lawrence2

Lawrence of the Resurrection

Having found in many books different methods of going to God, and divers practices of the spiritual life, I thought this would serve rather to puzzle me, than facilitate what I sought after, which was nothing but how to become wholly God’s.

This made me resolve to give the all for the All: so after having given myself wholly to God, to make all the satisfaction I could for my sins, I renounced, for the love of Him, everything that was not He; and I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world.

Sometimes I considered myself before Him as a poor criminal at the feet of his judge; at other times I beheld Him in my heart as my Father, as my God: I worshipped Him the oftenest that I could, keeping my mind in His holy presence, and recalling it as often as I found it wandered from Him.

I found no small pain in this exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily.

I made this my business, as much all the day long as at the appointed times of prayer; for at all times, every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business, I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting my thought of God….

…When we are faithful to keep ourselves in His holy presence, and set Him always before us, this not only hinders our offending Him, and doing anything that may displease Him, at least wilfully, but it also begets in us a holy freedom, and if I may so speak, a familiarity with God, wherewith we ask, and that successfully, the graces we stand in need of.

In fine, by often repeating these acts, they become habitual, and the presence of God is rendered as it were natural to us.

Lawrence of the Resurrection (1614-1691): Practice of the Presence of God; Letter 1.