I Found Something Today...

P. Aloysius Deeney, OCD has a Blog & I want to share a little of what he wrote on September 30th...

"The first sentence in #17 of the Constitutions is “The vocation to the Teresian Carmel is a commitment to live a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ.” Now let me point out what I think is the operative word. There are a few words of course, it’s a vocation, and it’s a calling, a calling that requires a commitment. You have to dedicate yourself to it. Your response has to be “ok, my free time of...” …we don’t need your free time, we need your time. God needs your time, because you have to dedicate yourself to live a life. It is a call to live a life. It’s not a call to pray…you’re not called to pray, you’re not called to wear brown, and you’re not called to do external things. You are called to live a life. You are called to LIVE something. Live the relationship with God. You do that when you go to work. You do that when you are in your family, when you’re making dinner, when you are praying, when you are going to a Secular Order meeting. You live whatever you do that you live, that’s when you are being a Carmelite. You don’t have to go and do something special to be a Carmelite. You don’t have to go away from what you are doing, you have to live what you are doing as a life in allegiance, loyalty to Jesus Christ. You have to live a life. It is a commitment to live a life in allegiance to Jesus Christ, pondering the Lord’s law day and night, and keeping watch with him."

"So here is when prayer first comes in as something that Carmelites do. What is described as prayer is: Pondering the law of the Lord day and night. Where is the law of the Lord? Scripture…the first thing that the Constitutions put in your hand for your relationship with God in prayer is the Scripture. You have noticed I am sure that in every Mass when we read the Gospel, we stand. In Morning or Evening Prayer when we read the Magnificat and the Benedictus, we stand. Why do we stand? Because those words are from the Gospel. We stand because that is what witnesses do. When you stand in these instances you are standing because you are witnesses to the truth of this Gospel. When you read the Magnificat and Benedictus you stand in witness. It is a symbol of what your life is, to be a witness to Jesus.

Pondering the law of the Lord day and night. The law of the Lord is given to us in our hand in the Scriptures, and that’s the first fruit of information which produces in us the formation of our minds and our hearts. Do you want to know what God thinks? Read the Scriptures. Do you want to know how God feels about what’s happening in His creation? Read the Scriptures. It is the only prayer book written by the Holy Spirit. Every other prayer book has been put together by somebody else, but the Scriptures are the relationship with God inspired by the Holy Spirit. I am sure all of you are just like me. If I go into a church where I have never been before one of the first things I look for is the sanctuary light, to find our where the Eucharist is so that I can acknowledge the Presence, the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

The Bible is the inspired Word of God in your home. Your Bible is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the form of inspired words. When you go into your home perhaps you already have your Bible in a certain place in your home as the Word of God…it is the law of the Lord which is the first thing the Order says is given to you for your relationship with God. Acknowledge the presence, recognize that is the presence of the Holy Spirit, you are not alone. You are not abandoned. God is present through His Word in your home.

The relationship with God is communicated to us. God comes to us in His Word. We look to the Scriptures, we look to the presence of God, of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, and we look to that as what gives us nourishment and sustenance in our relationship with Him. He is communicating to us. We can touch His Word. If you are alone, read the Word out loud, then your mouth is saying it, your eyes are seeing it, your ears are hearing it. It is coming into you, the Word of God, God’s thoughts. You are not alone. St. Teresa says “Faithful to this principle of the Rule”…she placed prayer as the foundation of basic exercise of her religious value. The foundation is not saying prayers. The foundation of Carmelite life, of the Teresian Carmelite life is the relationship of God that is communicated to us in His Word, and that’s what we live, that relationship with God through the Scriptures that comes to us. It feeds and nourishes us."

Now, if you would like to read more, go to:
http://ocd4ocds.blogspot.com/index.html#3594628944590817775

It's so wonderful! Very Well Said...