Gregory of Nyssa, THE LIFE OF MOSES
And the true vision of God consists in this, in never reaching satiety of the desire. We ought always to look through the things that we can see and still be on fire with the desire to see more…Yet from another point of view this running is also a standing still for, he says, “I will station you up on the rock” (Exodus 33:22)…For normally he who ascends never stays still, while he who stands still does not ascend. Yet, in this case, it is precisely through being still that the ascent occurs. The meaning of this is that the more firm and immoveable a person is in the good, so much the more does he accomplish the race of virtue.
Origen, PRAYER
…we must hold in the same way that we profit by the recollection of the God in who we believe and who sees the most secret movements of the soul. The soul is disposing itself to please him as being present and looking on and anticipating every thought, “the searcher of hearts and reins” (Ps 7:10)…Those who give themselves continually to prayer know by experience that through this frequent practice they avoid innumerable sins and are led to perform many good deeds…”The light of your countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us” (Ps 4:6).
The person who prays in this way and who has already received such benefits becomes more fitted to be united with the Spirit of the Lord…Moreover, because of the purification already mentioned, he shares in the prayer of the Word of God, who stands in the midst even of those who are not aware of it…praying for those who pray and pleading with those who plead…For virtuous works, or the carrying out of what is enjoined, form part of prayer…if we regard the whole life of the saint as one great continuous prayer. What is usually termed “prayer” is but a part of this prayer, and it should be preformed not less than three times each day.
John Cassian, CONFERENCES 9 AND 10
Hence we must prepare ourselves before the time of prayer to be the prayerful persons that we wish to be. For the mind in prayer is shaped by the state that it was previously in…This makes us angry or sad, depending on our previous condition, or it recalls past lusts or business…Therefore, before we pray we should make an effort to cast out from the innermost parts of our heart whatever we do…
A supplication is an imploring or a petition concerning sins…”Prayers are those acts by which we offer or vow something to God, which is called ‘vow’ in Greek…”in the third place there are intercessions, which we are also accustomed to make for others when our spirits are fervent”…”Finally, in the fourth place there are thanksgiving which the mind, whether recalling God’s past benefits, contemplating his present ones, or foreseeing what great things God has prepared for those who love him, offers to the Lord in unspeakable ecstasies.
‘That the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and they in us’ (Jn 17:26). And again: ‘That all may be one, as you Father in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us’ (Jn 17:21)…this will be the case when every love, every desire, every effort, every undertaking, every thought of ours, everything that we live, that we speak, that we breathe, will be God, and when that unity which the Father now has with the Son and which the Son has with the Father will be carried over into our understanding and our mind, so that, just as he loves us with a sincere and pure and indissoluble love, we too may be joined to him with a perpetual and inseparable love and so united with him that whatever we breathe, whatever we understand, whatever we speak, may be God.
John Tauler, SERMON 39
You should realize truly: all prayers or actions that hinder your spirit from praying should simply be let go, whatever they might be or be called, or however great or good they might seem…He should recollect himself and turn to his interior ground with upraised heart and mind and with his faculties ready, with an interior gaze focused on god present, and with an interior desire, especially for the dearest will of God, in a sinking away of one’s own self from people and all creatures and a sinking deeper and deeper into the transfigured will of God. And then a person should with devotion draw in all things that were entrusted to him and should desire that god bring about his own honor and praise for the advantage and consolation of those people that are entrusted to him.
Some carry the stones, others the mortar – all the many skills. All this is directed to serving one accomplishment – that the construction of the cathedral be one thoroughly and be completed. All this is so that it may become a house of prayer.
Aelred of Rievaulx, SPIRITUAL FRIENDSHIP
Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ may be the third between us.
Therefore, on the basis of the perfection o f charity we love many people who are a burden and pain to us. We are concerned about them in an honest, not a feigned or pretended way, but truly and voluntarily.
John Tauler, SERMON 39
In the first stage, that of jubilatio, a person becomes intensely aware of the dear signs of his love that God has marvelously given us in the heavens and on earth, how marvelously much good he has done for us and all creatures…showered him with gifts, carried him, advised him, waited for him, cared for him, and for his sake became human and suffered, how he offered up his life, his soul, and himself for us, and to what inexpressible nearness to him he has invited him, and how that most Holy Trinity has expectantly awaited him eternally so that he might be filled with joy forever…thus does god lure, pull, and yank a person, first of all out of himself, and then out of all dissimilarity to himself.
Nicholas of Cusa, TWO LETTERS ON MYSTICAL THEOLOGY
It is impossible for the power of desire to be moved except by love, and whatever is loved can only be loved under the aspect of the good. No one is good but God alone, as the Truth says (Lk 18:19). Everything that is loved or chosen by reason of goodness is not loved without any knowledge of goodness at all, because it is loved insofar as it is good. Therefore, in every such love by which a person is carried into God knowledge enters in although it does not know the essence that it loves. There is, then, a coincidence of knowledge and ignorance or a learned ignorance…Love of the good presents the good as not yet grasped, for the spirit’s motion that is love would cease if it attained its goal. It is always moved to attain more, and because the good is infinite, the spirit will never cease being moved forward…Since even the uneducated can be led to faith by the word, they are swept up into God’s friendship…
George Herbert, THE ELIXIR
Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in any thing
To do it as for Thee
John Tauler, SERMON 3
…if you are hungry or thirsty, if someone saddens you by word or deed, or whatever might happen to cause you distress – all this molds you and serves to make you a noble and joyful person. It has been completely ordained by God that this should happen to you…All the myrrh that God gives us is rightly ordered, so that he might lead a person to great things through suffering. He has arranged it that all things vex humankind. God could just as well and just as easily have made bread grow instead of grain. But men must toil in all things.
Now, there is one kind of very bitter myrrh that God gives: interior affliction and darkness…For God visits upon him horrible trials in strange and unusual ways that no one notices except the person going through it. Such people have such astounding sufferings, strange myrrh, and hardly anyone know s what to make of it…myrrh is resisted in two ways: with the senses and with the faculty of reason…Some people think themselves so wise and imagine they are deflecting it with their wisdom and attribute these external reversals to good or bad luck, and they think they might have better preserved themselves against suffering. If this or that had been done, they imagine, things would have turned out well and suffering would have been avoided. They consider themselves wiser than God…
