"Drawe me to mercie"

Have mercie, Lord have mercie:  for I know | How much I nede thy mercie in this case. | The horror of my gilt doth dayly growe, | And growing weares my feble hope of grace. | I fele and suffer in my thralled breast | Secret remorse and gnawing of my heart. | I fele my sinne, my sinne that hath opprest | My soule with sorrow and surmounting smart. | Drawe me to mercie:  for so oft as I | Presume to mercy to direct my sight, | My Chaos and my heape of sinne doth lie, | Between me and thy mercies shining light. | What ever way I gaze about for grace, | My filth and fault are ever in my face.

     Anne Vaughan Locke, from A meditation of a penitent sinner, vvriten in maner of a paraphrase vpon the 51. Psalme of Dauid, in Sermons of John Calvin, vpon the songe that Ezechias made after he had been sicke (1560), as quoted by David Marno, in Death be not proud:  the art of holy attention (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 118.

Drop the book without scruple

"When contemplation makes us drop the book from our hands, there is nothing more for us to do than to let it fall without worry."

"Quand le recueillement nous fait tomber le livre des mains, il n’y a qu’à le laisser tomber sans scrupule."

     François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon, Maxims of the saints 20.True, trans. Chad Helms, Classics of Western spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 2006), 262.  I was put onto this by Dictionnaire de spiritualité, sv Lectio divina et lecture spirituelle III (col. 502), by André Boland.  French from the critical edition of 1911, ed. A. Chérel, p. 242, here.

"envy of Joyce"

"In a sense, I guess I did read my way into the Church. But I didn’t reason my way. I was drawn in large measure by envy of Joyce, who had been raised in a Catholic Church that had spiritual and imaginative power, and that went on haunting him after he had left. I couldn’t imagine writing an autobiographical novel to compare with Joyce’s Portrait, about a young woman who grew up singing 'On Eagle’s Wings.'"

     Julia Yost, as interviewed by Matthew Schmitz in "A conversation between two converts," First things, 12 November 2018, an excerpt from the book Mind, heart, and soul: intellectuals and the path to Rome, ed. Robert P. George and R. J. Snell (TAN Books, 2018).

"The sacramental imagination" as a dodge

"There’s a lot of talk about how Catholics have something called the 'sacramental imagination.' Often this is said sentimentally, as if Catholics were romantic savages who view everything as suffused with wonderment and beauty, enchanted people who climb up and down the rungs of the analogy of being. This is a way of talking around the actual content of the faith. What the sacramental imagination should mean, first of all, is actual belief in the sacraments: Marriage is indissoluble and ordained by God. Christ is present in the Eucharist and must be revered. My grandparents in their concern for my baptism were much better examples of the sacramental imagination than all the faith-in-fiction litterateurs combined. The sacrament of baptism was real to them, and so long as I went without it, they feared my damnation. They had the sacramental imagination in that cold, narrow sense. My parents did not."

     Matthew Schmitz, as interviewed by Julia Yost in "A conversation between two converts," First things, 12 November 2018, an excerpt from the book Mind, heart, and soul: intellectuals and the path to Rome, ed. Robert P. George and R. J. Snell (TAN Books, 2018).

"one's love is durable only if one's mind is fed."

"son amour n'est durable que si son esprit est nourri."

     Bernard-Marie Chevignard, O.P., "Formation spirituelle," Dictionnaire de spiritualité 5 (1964), cols. 705 (cols. 699-716).

Into Great Silence, or: "silent prayer can center a life more than the liturgy"

"It is also necessary to safeguard without let-up the essential contemplative function of the liturgy, which demands an appreciation for [(le sens de)] sacred silence.  Silence and song are the privileged expressions of human communion.  A liturgical celebration that culminates [(s'achever)] spontaneously in silence gives proof of its religious quality.  Monastic wisdom knows how to effect [(sait)] this, for it always mixes silent prayer into the divine office".
     "It is necessary to respect profoundly the freedom of the Holy Spirit.  If there is no Church, are no Christians without sacraments; if there is no fundamental spiritual formation without incorporation into Christ dead and risen—[an incorporation] accomplished organically via the sacraments and the grace of Pasch experienced in the liturgy—, there are, however, very different ways and degrees of leading the life of the liturgy.  In fact, practically [speaking], silent prayer can center a life more than the liturgy.  There is no spiritual formation that does not aim at the one as well as the other.  Meanwhile a grave deficiency in liturgical life [such as a lack of silence] would be a fundamental omission in spiritual formation".

     Bernard-Marie Chevignard, O.P., "Formation spirituelle," Dictionnaire de spiritualité 5 (1964), cols. 710-711 (cols. 699-716).

"there is no serious spiritual formation that is not devoted to looking life straight in the face"

"The spiritual Christian is thus a man objectively formed [('objectivement formé' or 'ordonné')] for real life.  The theological virtues center him on God himself and render him docile to him.  By them he is able to live and breathe in God [(sait respirer en Dieu)].  Under the inspiration of God, the moral virtues govern his human steps along [(dans)] the difficult paths of life.  Whatever the words employed by the spiritual [writers]—discretion, prudence, strength [(force)], etc.—there is no serious spiritual formation that is not devoted to looking life straight in the face [(regarder la vie en face)] and taking it up with the grace of God and under [(dans)] the inspiration [(souffle, also breath or blast)] of the theological virtues.  Supernatural prudence and Christian strength are its pivots; lucidity, courage, a sense of one's responsibilities, even confrontation are its conditions."

     Bernard-Marie Chevignard, O.P. on how "The grace of Christ forges in the soul the courageous virtues of life," "Formation spirituelle," Dictionaire de spiritualité 5 (1964), col. 702 (cols. 699-716).  According to Chevignard, the supernatural virtues tend to "wed" themselves to (épouser, to marry, wed, espouse; take up, assume) the natural structures of the soul.