Ritual Intention

"There was nothing in it, but then I offered it to God"...

The ceremony would be empty, meaningless and without effect, if we did not perform it for the loving sake of God. It is the purity of our intention alone, which transmagnifies the ritual and makes it real. In the offering of our efforts to God we make them holy, and sanctify the smallest thing. Even the highest is exalted by our praise.

The Virgin Mary herself would be powerless to intercede for us, if her simple appearance were not enough to excite our subtlest affection, inspiring within us the recollection of God and His Love.

How beautiful is the Holy Mother of God? Beauty itself is ugly beside Her; She is beauty when beauty is not. No speech can convey the splendor of Her gestures. Never a heart mistook Her intention; none failed to yield Her its utmost. O, Blessed Virgin, magnify the sensitivity to beauty in our hearts, that we may receive you in the fullness of perfection which is yours!

All the power in a cross is the substance of remembrance; for we have within us the memory of the true cross, of which the outer is a servant and faithful reflection.

Flashes

There was nothing holy in it, but then I offered it to God.

Write your love letters to God, and seal them with a mist.

Nobody makes history like one who lives in the present.

It is impossible to expand one's breadth and depth of vision without increasing one's inferiority complex, as well. Those who see the most become as nothing, but are consumed by their enthusiasm for God.

The highest intelligence makes matters simple. It speaks with the innocence of a child, so that children can understand. It does not hesitate to call a mystery a mystery, or a miracle a miracle. It has no desire to complicate them, nor explain them cleverly away. Children do not need miracles explained, anyway. They take them as a matter of fact.

It wouldn't be a miracle, if it didn't happen.

I crash the alchemical wedding, and stumble onto everything;
see more than I am fit to say, and say more than I am fit to do.

Lightning can turn evening into day, yet, only for an instant;
such is everyone who speaks the truth, while living in a lie.

It is not stealing when the man is rich;
nor is it charity when he is poor, --
only the beginning of justice.

Arrogance is when I accuse you.
Modesty is when I accuse myself.
Humility is when I accuse us both.
Love is when God pardons all.

I had to lose the way, to find the wilderness.

Why do we say "talents", when we could say "gifts"?
Because we lack the humility to honor God for all things.

Don't think it very strange, --

When your child has the gift

Your grandfather took to the grave.

Apologetics

If we had no vices, we would have no use for the training of virtues at all. You see vice in the Church. Very well. The Church was founded on one who denied Christ three times. Vice is a given. But can you see virtue, as well? Can you see a billion learning how to love, as you see a million learning how to hate? There is so much that is good in this. Do not throw away the baby (Jesus) with the holy water. Sure, it got a little dirty when Mary baptized him. What did you expect?

Religion, -- which is to say, the various outer forms of individual religions; their visible shells, if not the inner seed of truth they all share as one -- corresponds to a realm which is subjective, but no less REAL than the objective realm we hold in common. Shiva appears to a Hindu. Or Vishnu, or Brahma... Allah to the Muslim... I have Jesus. 

He is God, for me. For me, He is God. He is my personal choice for a "Divine Ideal". He is my avatar. But I do not begrudge other faiths their heroes. If they are idols to me, it is because they must be; because I can choose only one faith, one path, and cannot follow all at once.

And, yes, I would be lying if I said I did not secretly believe that I had guessed correctly; that, in some more objective sense, he really is the one and only true -- or, at any rate, the most honest and faithful, -- reflection of the Godhead and "the will of God for man".

I require a personal god; the most personal god; a brother in Christ, -- as well as a Way.

And I foresee a kingdom where Christianity overwhelms all faiths, not by force, but by love, and the most gentle persuasion. I see Buddhists of the future converting for the love of Jesus, and Pagans for the sake of Mary. And maybe it is only my arrogance or foolishness. But I think Christ deserves to win. Correction: I think he has won, and deserves the honor.

No, I do not mean to be antagonistic about it. Not at all. It is my opinion. And I would not force it on anyone, or threaten them with "hellfire". I only sing the most beautiful song I know, and hope one day they'll join me.

I can also sing with John:

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
I hope one day you'll join us, and the world will live as one."

Of course, he was IMAGINING a world without religion. I know that. But I believe religion IS the dream. The deepest part of it, anyway. Beyond the firmament of artists. In the realm of the mystics. The ones who live in their creations, and make their lives their masterpiece. They are the cathedrals among men.

Relations

We resemble in some remarkable way, and may very well be, slain gods and goddesses, or fallen angels, exiled and ill upon the common atmosphere.

We ought to be deferential to all, as to deposed royalty; divested of the retinues, but not the rights, of kings. Each one of us is, after all, a Divine Prince, Son of the First King, -- or so the Love of God has christened and called us.

And why not? When love, being the closest of all created things to the Divine Monarch, runs as holy blood within our veins. When it pools into and up from the fountains of our hearts; in the courtyards of the kingdom of heaven.

There, deep within the sacred groves and gardens of our hearts, settled in the jurisdiction of Paradise, safe behind walls of true discernment, and under the watchful protection of the King, we find shade beneath the outstretched arms of some magnificent Y'gdrassil; Tree of Knowledge, Life, and Love, whose seeking roots find water in the earth; spirit in the flesh.

Her sap, Her blood, as ours, is rendered noble; annointed by Holy Love; the highest law.

But how could it be otherwise? For it is nothing if not love which runs through all things, -- as blood, as sap, or Holy Spirit, -- relating, vitalizing, and exalting them. Only love ushers every object together in the holy marriage of the universe. Love alone has the honor of inspiring this mighty congress.

Fragments

Dreamers must shape the world, or it will never be real.

A man's creation is his mirror. Even where it is false, he is false.

Often, the sentence reveals the man the book conceals.

Wonders surround us and throw us off balance.

Billions of people pray for you; in churches, temples, mosques, all over the world, they pray; for the sick, the dying, the captive, the poor, the lovelorn, the addicted, and the lost; for seekers, travelers, laborers, widows, orphans, and mothers; the cowardly, the selfish, melancholy, wrathful, and tired; for people under every conceivable station and condition of life. Hearts turn and are lifted towards you. Good souls gather to remember you in their thoughts.

Flowers give their fragrance to the room, but we, so far congested, can scarcely smell them without approaching. So it is with holy books. You may place them beneath a table, still, a saint will sniff them out. Others, like ourselves, must see them, read them, even reflect upon their contents, in order to draw a breath of that same exalted perfume.

I'm a writing fool.
It's a lot like being a dancing fool,
except that it requires fancier footwork.
If you follow my lead.

Like harp strings, the mind plucks words of virtue, and their music vibrates in the heart.

The heart's attention wanders, even while the mind keeps watch.

If I do not speak of love, I can give no honest accounting of my speech, -- unless it is that I speak with love, and to such a degree that my words, whatever their ostensible meaning, unambiguously proclaim their intimacy and allegiance to love.

We are always looking to romance and be romanced by life. We want her to shock and inflame our souls and our guts; be struck by her beauty, grandeur, and light. She has to wow us sometimes, and lead us to awe. To fall completely out of love with life, to lose all hope of reconciliation with the one who gives you breath, can only end in suicide. Our love for life, therefor, directly infuses us with the vitality to life; the life-force which propels us, more or less willingly, upon the currents of life.

Love is surely at the heart of the universe, for there is no other heart besides your own, and no substance more dear, more formed of love, by love.

Beauty weaves into kinship all things; the more disparate the elements, the more elaborate are the jewels and joints by which they are fixed to one another; the gold and diamond bands they thread upon each other's hands.

Anyone who has experienced tenderness has felt the touch of Mary's fingertips. All who yield to a quiet, soft and gracious manner submit themselves as plainly to Her will. She is the bright star by whom pilgrims are led into the presence of God. Who among the living and the dead has not gazed in luxurious awe upon this blessed luminary, whatever name he knew Her by?

Who but Christ deserves to be called the highest, the clearest symbol for love? And for the tendency, the will, of love to entice, seduce, and unite together the affections, ligaments, and aims of God and man? It is love which enlightens the mind, -- and persuades it to settle in the heart, of man. Love guides him to the kingdom, to the foot and very seat of the throne. Love intimately relates him, by the spiritual blood of it's substance, to the source of what is best in all things; what we might call the reason and purpose of all things; the once, eternal, and ever-recurring Creator, or creative impulse, behind, within, and anticipating all things. Who but Christ personifies this supreme ontological truth, and gives it a face in the world? Love has been firmly and forever united with Christ; clearly identified with His image and name. We cannot imagine Him apart from love without inflicting the most glaring disfigurement on His memory. Call upon Him and love comes to mind. Nor can love be considered apart from Him, if it is only the highest and purest form of love. Truly, He has made it His own, -- even as He has made it ours, pouring it out so freely on us all; truly, when Christ climbed Golgotha and planted the flag of His cross, He claimed the entire world for love.

They alone have understood love who levitate at the sign of the cross, and collapse into ecstasy at the mention of His name.

The Lord is beautiful when He bends, and breathtaking when He bleeds.

There is no true beauty without pathos; if every rose wears a thorn, every bleeding heart wears a crown of them. Do not our very sins and blemishes present us in the soft light of mercy, and make us beautiful? Even tears of joy contain some melancholy in their structure. While the view from the mountain is breathtaking in its own right, nonetheless, the summit takes our breath away mostly on account of the climb.

Those who observe merely the outward forms of religion, perhaps as a pretext for socializing, or solely as a matter of custom, rather obeying a current of public convention than the secret promptings of God, already have their reward (as the scriptures say), -- but they have no religion; only a mawkish semblance of it. Conversely, the atheist who wrestles passionately against the notion of God, nevertheless, still worships and has faith in "the god who is not". However he decides it, on whichever side he positions himself, the existence of deity, and the conceptions people hold with respect to deity, continues to occupy a sincere and solemn place in his thoughts. This is, at least in a preliminary sense, what it means to be religious.

Real faith in God is not about pretending to possess knowledge of secret or mysterious matters. On the contrary, it is born directly from an uncompromising admission of our total ignorance. And not merely ignorance, but, our absolute inability to answer the most important questions of life and death. Finally, our inability even to leave untouched the most stubborn and inviolable paradoxes which confront us as human beings; -- questions without answers and problems without solutions; which were, perhaps, never meant to be answered or solved, but simply interacted with and, ultimately, accepted. Not because we are illumined, either by divine revelation or mere delusion, but, because we regard ourselves in perfect darkness, we rely upon the Light of God. His prophets say, "Love, for God is love, and whosoever loves is of God", and we who receive Him say, "Well, why not!?" In lieu of another answer or source of light, love will do nicely. Maybe divinely. And, anyway, who can imagine a better one? We may be ignorant of many things, but love proposes itself as the single response to the most pressing of difficulties, and though we may be unsure, we cannot help but be enticed and seduced to believe in love. In our ignorance, we latch onto love, and hang on by the skin of our teeth; that is, by our faith. Because it is either love or it is nothing; darkness; groping; unknowing. So we take love. We take love as God. We can convince ourselves of no other answers, but here, at least, is one we can follow in the hope of being convinced. It seems nothing but love could possibly command this quality of attention. Love alone suffices; for love, we can abandon all else as mere distraction; for love, we can become single-minded, single-pointed beings. Or, for love, we can die trying. Love assures us that anything which can become our all, or which we would like to become our all, has already become God for us. In a heart sensitive to love, nothing more is required to satisfy the qualifications we imagine for the existence of God. We may dispense with omnipotence, omniscience, even consciousness itself. Love is enough, and it is enough that love is. I myself would follow a mortal man who had entirely devoted himself to love and not hesitate for a moment to identify him with the immortal God; I would wear him, as Hamlet says, "in my heart of heart".

I propose that love is the only emotion in the heart, as light is the only "color" in the church; though stained glass refracts it into various hues, and dust collects it into shadows.

The visionary imagines, believes, and speaks, what the mystic feels, knows, and lives.

The past is a skin we can never shed; we drag it, like chains, beyond the grave.
Even the man newborn in Christ must carry, like a cross, the flesh of the man he once was,
and of all the men he has ever been.