Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

Tag: solitude

The desert will feed you

If you have fled away to remain in solitude, continue to stay there; wait there for the One who will save you ‘from pusillanimity of spirit and the storm’. However much the storm of battles may assail you, however much you may feel the lack even of sustenance in the desert, do not because of… Read More ›

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The difference (Loneliness and isolation)

Loneliness is an experience that the vast majority of people go through; perhaps all but there is no way of knowing that.  There are people who experience aloneness all of their lives, but who are not necessarily isolated.   Those who have faith, who seek to deepen their understanding of what their tradition tells them, have… Read More ›

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The Seed of Solitude

Keep your eyes clean and your ears quiet and your mind serene. Breathe God’s air. Work, if you can, under His sky. But if you have to live in a city and work among machines and ride in the subways and eat in a place where the radio makes you deaf with spurious news and… Read More ›

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Finding Interior Solitude

You will never find interior solitude unless you make some conscious effort to deliver yourself from the desires and the cares and the attachments of an existence in time and in the world. Do everything you can to avoid the noise and the business of men. Keep as far away as you can from the… Read More ›

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Become the brother of God

I hear You saying to me: “I will give you what you desire. I will lead you into solitude. I will lead you by the way that you cannot possibly understand, because I want it to be the quickest way. “Therefore all the things around you will be armed against you, to deny you, to… Read More ›

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Noisy world is enemy of prayer

Vatican City, Mar 7, 2012 / 11:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The constant noise that accompanies modern life is an enemy of God’s word being heard in prayer, Pope Benedict XVI said. “Interior and exterior silence are necessary in order to hear that Word,” and yet, “our age does not, in fact, favor reflection and contemplation,”… Read More ›

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Take a survey of your abilities, and consult God

It is the opinion of St. Gregory the Great that the world is to some persons so full of ambushes and snares, or dangerous occasions of sin, that they cannot be saved but by choosing a safe retreat. Yet there are some who find the greatest dangers in solitude itself; so that it is necessary… Read More ›

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Finding God … in service of our brothers.

There is a stage in the spiritual life in which we find God in ourselves – this presence is a created effect of His love. It is a gift of His, to us. It remains in us. All the gifts of God are good. But if we rest in them, rather than in Him, they… Read More ›

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“I”

The shallow “I” of individualism can be possessed, developed, cultivated, and pandered to, satisfied: it is the center of all our strivings for gains and for satisfaction, whether material or spiritual. But the deep “I” of the spirit, of solitude and of love, cannot be “had,” possessed, developed, perfected. It can only be and act… Read More ›

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Seek solitude and interior peace

If in the depths of your soul you were to keep a quiet silence, the all-powerful Word would flow from the Father's throne secretly into you. Happy then is the person who has so fled the world's tumult, who has so withdrawn into the solitude and secrecy of interior peace, that he can hear not… Read More ›

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