Tag Archive for ‘soul’

The delights of contemplation

If you ask me how to obtain the delights of contemplation, my immediate answer is by living in the wilderness and coming up from it. You know what scripture says: `The Lord God will make the wilderness of Sion like delights, and her desert like the garden of the Lord’. Stay in solitude and be [...]

Angel of Life

My beauty is my openness, for I am without form, for how can compassion love and empathy be constrained. I am the one who calls you to embrace all that you are, your darkness is your pathway into deeper mystery, your path of light a dark one, placing one foot in front of the other, [...]

When We Follow Our Vocation

We know when we are following our vocation when our soul is set free from preoccupation with itself and is able to seek God and even to find Him, even though it may not appear to find Him. Gratitude and confidence and freedom from ourselves: these are signs that we have found our vocation and [...]

Laying Down Ones Soul for Another

Two brethren made their way to the city to sell their handiwork: and when in the city they went different ways, divided one from the other, one of them fell into fornication. After a while his brother came to him, saying, “Brother, let us go back to our cell.” But he answered, “I am not [...]

Nothing is as precious as a human soul

Nothing is as precious as a human soul. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his soul? Yet the love of money has perverted and destroyed all our values; it has driven out the fear of God and holds our souls in its power, [...]

Great benefit to the Souls

Then we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition; next, we make mention also of the holy fathers and bishops who have already fallen asleep, and, to put it simply, of all among us [...]

Scripture Mirrors our Soul

Holy Scripture is presented to the mind’s eye as a kind of mirror so that our inner appearance can be seen in it. In this mirror we recognize both the ugliness and the beauty of our soul. We can tell what progress we are making, or see our utter lack of progress. . . . [...]

Saint Benedict of Norcia; A Short Biography

Today, I would like to speak about Benedict, the Founder of Western Monasticism and also the Patron of my Pontificate. I begin with words that St Gregory the Great wrote about St Benedict: “The man of God who shone on this earth among so many miracles was just as brilliant in the eloquent exposition of [...]

The Word is near you…

‘The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.’ Believing is having found. The faithful know that Christ dwells in their hearts by faith. What could be nearer? Therefore seek him confidently, seek him faithfully. ‘The Lord is good to the soul who seeks him.’ Seek him in your prayers, follow him [...]