All Quotes By Tag: Saints

“There is a bench in the back of my garden shaded by Virginia creeper, climbing roses, and a white pine where I sit early in the morning and watch the action. Light blue bells of a dwarf campanula drift over the rock garden just before my eyes. Behind it, a three-foot stand of aconite is flowering now, each dark blue cowl-like corolla bowed for worship or intrigue: thus its common name, monkshood. Next to the aconite, black madonna lilies with their seductive Easter scent are just coming into bloom. At the back of the garden, a hollow log, used in its glory days for a base to split kindling, now spills white cascade petunias and lobelia. I can’t get enough of watching the bees and trying to imagine how they experience the abundance of, say, a blue campanula blosssom, the dizzy light pulsing, every fiber of being immersed in the flower. …Last night, after a day in the garden, I asked Robin to explain (again) photosynthesis to me. I can’t take in this business of _eating light_ and turning it into stem and thorn and flower…I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden. Maybe I would call it eating light. Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice: _apophatic mysticism_, which is the dark surrender of Zen, the Via Negativa of John of the Cross, and _kataphatic mysticism_, less well defined: an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation. Maybe Francis of Assissi was, on the whole, a kataphatic mystic, as was Thérèse of Lisieux in her exuberant momemnts: but the fact is, kataphatic mysticism has low status in religious circles. Francis and Thérèse were made, really made, any mother superior will let you know, in the dark nights of their lives: no more of this throwing off your clothes and singing songs and babbling about the shelter of God’s arms.When I was twelve and had my first menstrual period, my grandmother took me aside and said, ‘Now your childhood is over. You will never really be happy again.’ That is pretty much how some spiritual directors treat the transition from kataphatic to apophatic mysticism.But, I’m sorry, I’m going to sit here every day the sun shines and eat this light. Hung in the bell of desire.”

“Wanasayansi wanaamini kuwa Yesu atarudi tarehe 29 Julai 2016. Tarehe hiyo kitu kikubwa sana kitatokea katika dunia yetu kitakachosababisha tetemeko kubwa la ardhi, litakalosababishwa na kubadilika kwa ncha za dunia, tendo litakalosababisha mionzi ya gama kutoka kwenye jua ifike duniani na kuua kila kitu kinachoonekana katika uso wa dunia hii. Watakatifu watafufuka na kumlaki Kristo mawinguni, ambaye anakuja kuwachukua wateule na kumweka Shetani kifungoni kwa miaka 1000. Hayo yote, wanasema, yatatokea ndani ya siku 11 kuanzia leo. Yaani, kusini mwa dunia kutakuwa kaskazini mwa dunia, kaskazini mwa dunia kutakuwa kusini mwa dunia. Kitendo hicho kitafanya dunia ikose kinga ya sumaku iitwayo ‘magnetosphere’ ambayo hukinga dunia dhidi ya mionzi ya gama kutoka kwenye jua. Mionzi hiyo hugonga ukuta wa ‘magnetosphere’ kila baada ya dakika 8 kwa mwendokasi wa kilometa milioni 1080 kwa saa; na kusambazwa katika ncha za dunia ambapo aghalabu huchanganyikana na oksijeni na kutengeneza kitu kinaitwa ‘aurora’, au mwanga wa ncha, ambacho ni maajabu mengine ya angani. Mwaka 2012 wanasayansi walisema ncha za dunia zingebadilika lakini hazikubadilika. Je, muda umefika sasa wa kuwaamini wanasayansi? Biblia ni chuo cha Mungu. Soma Biblia kupata maarifa.”

“Who can we claim to know God, and deny him by our actions.”

“We would never call inexplicable little insights ‘hunches,’ for fear of drawing the universe’s attention. But they happened, and you knew you had been in the proximity of one that had come through if you saw a detective kiss his or her fingers and touch his or her chest where a pendant to Warsha, patron saint of inexplicable inspirations, would, theoretically, hang.”

“It is no sign of benediction to have been obsessed with the lives of saints, for it is an obsession intertwined with a taste for maladies and hunger for depravities. One only troubles oneself with saints because one has been disappointed by the paradoxes of earthly life; one therefore searches out other paradoxes, more outlandish in guise, redolent of unknown truths, unknown perfumes…”

“…the dead have a way of becoming saints in the eyes of their survivors…”

“[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company.”

“The saints, too, had wandering minds. The saints, too, had constantly to recall their constantly wandering mind-child home. They became saints because they continued to go after the little wanderer, like the Good Shepherd.”

“The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)”

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.”

“Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.”

“Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.”