Messages

  • Penn: Turning from time to eternity

    “The truest end of life is to know the life that never ends. He that makes this his care, will find it his crown at last. And he that lives to live ever, never fears dying: nor can the means be terrible to him that heartily believes the end.

    For though death be a dark passage, it leads to immortality, and that’s recompense enough for suffering of it. And yet faith lights us, even through the grave, being the evidence of things not seen.

    And this is the comfort of the good, that the grave cannot hold them, and that they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. Death, then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live, if we cannot bear to die.”

  • Neither death nor life, angels nor demons

    “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

  • What is retirement for?

    “Six and one-half years into retirement, I ask: what is retirement for? The signposts around me are inadequate and the expectations ill- defined at best. The advice available is of the kind that says, ‘Start saving early so you’ll have enough money for what you want.’ ‘Watch your health so you’ll be able to do what you want.’ ‘Here are the 20 best places to live if you want to play golf, or fish, or enjoy the weather.’ ‘Do this or do that so you can leave to your heirs what you have worked so hard to accumulate.’ ‘Don’t be a burden to your children or interfere in their lives.’ ‘Get a hobby.’ ‘Volunteer.’ None of these seemed to come close to answering the question that opened for me: ‘What is retirement for?'”

  • Transmuting loneliness into solitude

    “The most effective workshop for learning how to hallow one’s diminishments is the faithful practice of contemplative prayer…. Loneliness, which is a negative experience, can be transmuted into solitude, which is a positive blessing. Loneliness of itself debilitates. Solitude builds up, affords a conscious setting in which significant growth in the life of the Spirit can take place. Solitude is a gift of time without accompanying distraction, an opportunity to keep company with one’s own soul. It is where the Holy Spirit can help one harness one’s own cross in such a way that it can be carried without too great strain. It is what St. Paul called, ‘the life which is hid with Christ in God.'”

  • What comfort really means

    “Sometimes religion appears to be presented as offering easy cures for pain: have faith and God will mend your hurts; reach out to God and your woundedness will be healed. The Beatitude ‘Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted’ can be interpreted this way too, but the Latin root of the word ‘comfort’ means ‘with strength’ rather than ‘at ease’. The Beatitude is not promising to take away our pain; indeed the inference is that the pain will remain with us. It does promise that God will cherish us and our wound, and help us draw a blessing from our distressed state.”

  • What to do when sleep forsakes you

    “The ability to sleep may well forsake us, leaving us wakeful for two or three hours in those darkest and most interminable hours of the night, say from two to five. This can be a real affliction: we can toss and turn and try angrily to fall asleep again. Or it can be an opportunity…”

  • I need more time for inner stillness

    “As I grow older, I seem to need more time for inner stillness…. This can happen in the midst of daily chores or when walking in a crowd or riding in a train. It means being still, open, reflective, holding within myself the crucible of joy and pain of all the world, and lifting it up to God.”

  • It is so delicious to be done with things

    “I am convinced it is a great art to know how to grow old gracefully, and I am determined to practise it… I always thought I should love to grow old, and I find it even more delightful than I thought. It is so delicious to be done with things, and to feel no need any longer to concern myself much about earthly affairs… I am tremendously content to let one activity after another go, and to await quietly and happily the opening of the door at the end of the passage-way, that will let me in to my real abiding place.”

  • Attend to what love requires of you

    “Every stage of our lives offers fresh opportunities. Responding to divine guidance, try to discern the right time to undertake or relinquish responsibilities without undue pride or guilt. Attend to what love requires of you, which may not be great busyness.”

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