On locutions and smacks upside the head

At prayer, most of the time, peace and serenity is the best you can hope for. It’s that tranquil comportment where it seems you could just sit alone in the church for hours. I use the word “comportment,” because it’s not “feelings.” It is a supernatural bearing.

The opposite is dryness in prayer. This is a really empty place, where you think all your efforts are just being poured into the abyss. It is really unpleasant, and tempting toward sins against hope, despair at the worst. Then gradually you learn how to profit from these moments through redemptive suffering.

Other times, you get some really fascinating stuff. Sometimes it is a deeper insight into some mystery of salvation history. Sometimes it is a very direct answer to direction you’ve been seeking. Other times it’s a bolt out of the blue – a vision or piece of information that is completely unrelated to anything you were thinking or praying about.

Lastly, there is just the plain old, run of the mill, getting your cage rattled, smacked upside the head, ass-kicking. That was me, on the receiving end today.

QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY
EPISTLE (I Cor. 13:1-13)
Brethren: If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil: Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth: Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never falleth away: whether prophecies shall be made void or tongues shall cease or knowledge shall be destroyed. For we know in part: and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child. We see now through a glass in a dark manner: but then face to face. Now I know in part: but then I shall know even as I am known. And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.
The Gospel was the Healing of the Blind. A blind man was healed, yet his blindness represents all of us. We were all blind, and we can be blinded again if we’re not careful.
My Rosary today is for the readership. Towards a holy, healthy, productive Lenten Season for us all.
Screenshot 2020-02-23 at 12.28.49
The Healing of the Blind of Jericho, Nicolas Poussin, 1650

 

6 thoughts on “On locutions and smacks upside the head”

  1. Thank you for your Rosary intention…..I’ll remember you and yours in mine.

    A special thank you for sharing the picture….how beautifully compelling and inspiring!

    Beautiful day here in the City of Brotherly Love….if your in the area check out the 9:30 a.m. Mass celebrated at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, “the Irish Washerwomen’s Church”, just down the road a bit from Saint Charles Borremeo Seminary – which was recently sold to Lakenau Hospital: what a travesty.

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