all of his stuff of therapeutic in the incarnational and all the magnificent things that can do with my imagination into all the wonderful considerations this isn't the moment for only that so it takes a real dying to what is normally are
basic self awareness of our psychic what's happening there but still all that
and so it as it were
to be aware that that cloud is above us and then to put a cloud over all the rest below us there's two clouds he says if you go to page fifty three and this is why it becomes hard work it's not just use you don't have a mystical experience this is a hard work beginning from the first of a day
day throughout chapter five
on the during contemplative prayer all created things in their works must be buried beneath the cloud of forgetting
if you wish to enter into this cloud to be at home in minute to take up the contemplative work of love as i urged you to do which were these words is powerful and right on and dance with to find that cloud up about is our home
are you to do there's something else you must do this is a work just as the cloud of unknowing lies above you between you and your god so you must fashion a cloud of forgetting beneath you beneath between you and every created thing so
the ongoing work with that to capital or whatever it is is to construct this cloud or all the rest this at least is the method to the cloud of others would say explore a little your anger or worker with this is this snippet
you've got the cloud up here where you don't see much of anything now you can see and feel and do all kinds of things quieted down your problem shoot down to your anger is quieted down it will survive half an hour just peace and is always changing anybody one
what ideas followed by another certain one feeling this followed by another unworthiness never know this is all transitory that just still it for a while
you did this cloud of forgetting that's why we were up here in the whole thing just bathed in fog it's kind of fun because that's kind of rumor that so we're here somewhere to stun the margin and desire and yearning awkward in this moment of contemplative prayer through what through designer craig your creepy
to god now he says through this got the the this can penetrate right to the heart of this
imagination can be lucky and memory delia but this is blind naked after love kid so that's basically yet but it's an easier decision and to do because of the main enemy than so to speak is a distress
actions and they shouldn't drive us crazy we should begin the period knowing we're going have lots of distractions the mystics talk about the the monkey cage within our mind with all these monkeys jumping here and there the the whole effective from chaotic thing
that the beat poet time by the coney island
i think that's a wonderful becomes and that it's out in one version where there's a gross black and white picture of corny i returned the comfort well i just assume at the beginning of the quiet that's going to happen start going to be mystical has a key or for lots of and i'll be off here with my anger gets sold for of the back there with
his memory and up there of this idea but then just when i realized that don't spend the next twenty minutes clobbering myself which is very gently a send back up the mountain let it be know that also sometimes i'm aware there's lots of movement noise and chaos and wouldn't level but
something else happening and this is very mysterious self-awareness is just kind of like a spotlight and bounces around here and there if we can still this event
with this real asceticism sing i can let all that other stuff go at least for half hour an hour or something then i'd drawn up into the cloud and then when we have to descend the cloud again all these things will be at least two little heels more harmonious more rock scene in perspective
questions comments about this basic practicing that's that's basically what it's all about living
the to clouds and the mountain in this particular moment of prayer
yeah the numerous between the cloud gay crushed and depression or repression or repression good
now as i understand this gets technical psychological but there's a definite distinction between suppression and repression suppression is when i consciously sale i'd like to dwell in my fantasy on that image but i'm not going to i set it aside repression is when i'm not aware right doing it
and i forced it down because my ego and superego just can't handle it then it's in there but it hasn't been dealt with with suppression it has been dealt with the conscious free decision so as i understand it this pudding the cloud there is equivalent to a mature decision at least for this period i'm going to settle this apart
so it's not a violence it's worth it can require a certain violence but it's not the sickness of repression
it's the discipline of focus i find have the highest time with that between like
this sunday's far from optimal just
try to preserve fact that my else i got in there somewhere and
and other days it comes up that i just let it go in and oranges and it just kind of loses its own power and goes back up
ah added something i struggled with the lives like you know i say well i'm not i mean there's a power just thinking about not getting any power and katie are usually too little caught the iowa games right now the cloud offers four for five very specific tactics with distractions but saying each one of us
these are just suggestions each one of us must come up with what works best and in a given moment one tactic might work best if i find it the destruction isn't that strong i can't just say no to it without investigate too much energy and go into the other thing if it's kind of a throbbing thing i have two he off
for some other kind of a bizarre things you can look over the shoulder this see a a farther rise a bigger context where you can just surrender think there's no way i'm going to escape this distraction and then sometimes somehow just that through the irony through the humor and it loses some of its force i like
the image above the ocean just walk into the ocean with the big waves are coming the way is knock you down you can plan it carefully enough and just go right down almost hitting the bed but under the wave is it's breaking up it it will face you at all so it's so if you could somehow go down to the
depp's through humility or something on his huge distractions crashing over you the other thing is if you can have some experience of the union with god again and very much helps because that could draw you upward sure aware that it's below and then he'll offer this key help which is the word which is so
something like the jesus prayer often a word or phrase quietly prayed over again and again can keep the lower faculty sufficiently busy as where the earliest commentators on the of pro the arches and can help us just with the one word shook our dart into the cloud
so there's all kinds of strategies that that's the battle to be fought
because our whole psyche certainly after the fall it's extremely disorders is extremely chaotic and the one thing we really it's terrifying also i think there's lots of fear just been there because lots of stuff bubbles up from beneath et cetera he had were aware of our own nakedness
weakness etc but if we can stay there how and here's where the whole psychology the will comes in it's not of what we're feeling today or a brilliant insight or wrong
but if i'm committed to this started and matter what and i use a whole range of strategies to stay there but i'm just going to sit or sin it's lot of that and just sit around and be their kind of thing and then come up with a whole range of subtle ways of dealing with all these seeds
one thing is just to name them i'm angry and i'm aware of this this area of anger within or i'm afraid or i'm sad or joyful joyful enthusiastic i can also be a great trainer distraction
but just to name
someone sneezes in the returned her seventy just be aware oh something else is happening at a different level it's subsidiary
if you use the skyscraper which assists if your way up and in the skyscraper in a beautiful apartment in your with a close close friend if they're working on the road beneath you know you don't take time to go over an open the door to scream at the noise below just kind of let it be maybe close all the windows to the extent that you can
but then just focus on your friend to accept simply as possible don't descend the mountain me directly engage
but i think if you definitely say no and it works that's again not sick repression that's free conscious chosen
suppression team for this moment and then you may want to go back to it afterwards you might want to be a whole half hours afterwards when you just do therapy is why am i in this specific angry thing against here med what's beneath them and etc
but in this particular moment it's not that it's just been with god in the silence
other questions comments
so think about the cloud in scripture and as archetypical simple and will proceed than specifically with this method of the cloud guardiola next wednesday thank you

like that way got i find it very hopeful that sub
i think i'm lot of people don't understand the physics of the way visit it's actually a circle around and i am further you can get down towards the cup when you're trying to get beyond the way the more you can use much the undercurrent tax again further was eventually assassinated actually in shock and
speeds your progress
thomas you're getting under the crests of whereas in breaking up you can get actually pushes you are after and marines could be able to swim up and you know how big as god's ripe and seven times it flips the body find this curve within the but but nottingham
i shall can be presented as a golf and circuit breakers way what happens in terms of its relationship to scripture so we learn about exploring that a bit and so remember that fundamental text to first challenge not only is god loving one of the various other things that god does
but god is love so that somehow everything that proceeds out of love proceeds from this inner life the center energy and essence so that it's all about that ultimately
well the classes and ordering a better
thank you
so given this then in the old testament we already have an echo that in the great shebab a bill has come to the front of the class because he came up with the schumer this central the tragic cull and spiritual moment and doctrinal it all comes together for israel
one is our lord and so we should love the lord our god etc and that this to say and the canticle and isaiah etc all those texts and examples of friendship love and feel your love and spousal love etc
then in the new testament of our lord sums it all up the law and the profits and this sums up his own life also and thus his incarnation god so loved the world and thus his sacrifice greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life etc etc and first corinthians thirteen which were coming up
up on now soon in vespers and hooper saw was waiting for them and so if we take this equation it
some claim the heart of scripture
so now we want to go back to the cloud and are marvelous mountain image each one of us is a up fully sacred mounted and to claim mad and realize all the different levels of this mountain that whole thing about levels is dangerous it concerns us about the the
teams of hierarchy and denigrating things below etc but it also gives a much subtler model of the human psyche so we can understand how lots of things for instance can be happening within us the same time we can get lots of stuff from outside and we can be feeling say sadness
should we can be remembering all kinds of stuff and worried about tomorrow but somehow still some deepest level at the center of it or the deepest point or at the summit it's all the see some mysterious sense of being united to god
before we plunge back into that remember our a homework assignment to think about sacred mountain certainly in the jewish christian tradition and then in other religions as we're aware of them up so as to claim a bit more this image because it is absolutely archetypical in the fullness of them
union so what are some sacred mountains that occurred to us
for me yeah what happened on mount tabor
yeah and that's it the center of our monastic life the a mystery and the transfiguration
yes somehow sums up what we come out these are all about so of the secret hermitage and so many of our houses have the dedication what does jesus do a table he goes up it i'm on a mountaintop and there is transfigured before them
and there there's moses and elijah the law in the prophets and or kind of thing
what other mountains sweat what do moses and elijah reminded us of
indeed and but both of them were there this up kind of mountain for which it all begins it terms of salvation history where the covenant is established and these first incredible for the often he said up israel just
always going back to from there on mount sinai
and then remember a eliza goes back there of in the first he often users lightning and thunder and and so eliza goes back to try to get a hold on things that he's there in the cave and mount sinai there's this whole new approach to the way god's revelation might be in in the still small voice
ice so if you got taper on the one n and the new testament and sinai on the and the other certain way you could reconstruct the of out of scripture in terms of to mountains
other moms yes i read those two you did okay
this one residents new a patient and talking about how he will say that you are like woman said like a man and of course that line planet solitaire by thousand for their aircraft or are like months
to me that
mount zion and then all throughout may and and pilgrimage song there's much i try regret or
very cute touch about and do of her
i a thirty four as in a lawyer blessing from son

why i'm posting up where is from siam can we have just i'm sure we all know which has to be and stir
the language tourism precisely so we've got these two mountains out in the wilderness of sinai and tabor but then the the mountain on which the holy city is set jerusalem all the residences and it's i'm the mountain top so that's kind of sucks
citing so the go to the tap into that and you're away you'll find it seems just desolate emptiness and but it's the whole people of god there it's the whole city it descends from on high in which jerusalem is just to prefiguring so yeah mount zion and up there their cyprian was starting to pick out psalms it's
cetera one of the way so claiming the office i find is to is to resonate with certain themes throughout the salt i like any mountain psalm and i tend at least with a pencil to note that in my soldier i think that's permitted isn't that terms of for the yeah good
that any beam about love that would want to be noted in the i like any theme about the heart or the name in terms of the jesus prayer will be seeing that a little more is a contemplative means of carrying us throughout the whole day etc but to claim scripture because it is ours and as the source
of nourishing for our contemplative lines and one ways to do that is just to note when something very special comes up yes in given with with siblings and images now
i'm i'm i'm afraid was also i have some
under my eyes and out for myself
beautiful
and then also him who were saying last week of allow and equating the mountain law is on
the amount of i say nothing
yet love the word
like that love and grip and now
yes regularly script uses map just as a symbol for something incredibly strong and permanent and then goes into the semitic hope how even more is the mercy is the love of god and tough so that's that there there's also where five outside was also come on
oh which is both companies have to somebody and this sorry
extremely important go it's a somehow on the mount of olives jesus begins his last trip into jerusalem
he is triumphant and then it's the scene in matthew of his eschatological discourse just the end of time and then mount all its that's the point of the anguish and suffering
and then the final love in this sense mountain of the ascension
so there's some somehow these decisive moments of salvation history of the old testament and the new are mountains
couple of other mountains we might know in noted scripture
on or out
oh
i think not forum is a synonym for mount sinai
there is now neighbor that movie went up he grinned on time
the you know off that's and good goodwin yet another mount over there of arafat arafat but era
a hunter mountains what about and terms of contemplative orders in their names and motto current yeah what happened this error
pardon me
yeah yeah they make good candy
color a elijah and practices of bell had an uncontested
here they battle it out so mom can be a place of a battling and the whole your will mount carmel and our own carmel and debt so that's a biggie
where where is jesus put on the cross mount calvary so another mountain
so again you cannot explore and ponder on hold salvation history just in terms of these of summit experiences and these summits in geography sort of claim that what about monasteries and to monasteries like mountains
mount athos this kind of central place for the whole eastern church in chimps us as we in the western were into hierarchy source central government catholic church well wrong the vatican
but the center of the eastern church is not constantinople or moscow it tends to be for so many devout orthodox mount athos it's nuts
that's where the aspire to make a pilgrimage to before the end of their life and chap was on the phone these days he's looking to make a pilgrimage of i guess about six days on foot here up the mountain of their budgets so on a mountainside but there's something about mountains the draw monasteries are now
sinai an ancient ancient monastery some have you been there haven't you know who else by the bruno know
illegal know
read somewhere that these mountains in israel especially aren't particularly high now observer from mechanic i know video but you have brewed why guess it's kind of about
sometimes gonna call them boots or something
the am going to be really aggressive
shara wilderness decline
it's all road doug taylor
what is k oh you're hooked
what about with them are benedictine family will speak on monte cassino that's a magnificent amount if you want to stray a bit into the franciscan out if you go to up a c c on the top of the mountain if you've got a soup jaco on where francis received the
the stigmata just and side of the mountain incredibly ah a barren no incredibly also subiaco a benedict's earlier experiences cleaning to the side of the mountain there's something about mountains and the monastic life commandery is right in the
way up there in the tuscan mountains we have this glorious book given us to our fire friend and third sacred mountains in the world and a glorious photographs but it begins with the himalayas we haven't even touched other religions but surely the mainline religions
and the mainland areas have their sacred mountains the himalayas abode of the sacred china mountains to the middle kingdom central asia japan out into the rising sun south and southeast asia cosmic centers only then with chapter six do we get to the middle east heights of revelation and
good title in europe north america the high in the beautiful then they have a whole chapter on the symbolism of the sacred mountain it's not just one does whole range of symbolisms in these different of
different religions are mountains and the secret in literature and art and tracing dante and spiritual dimension of mountaineer incident but a good book
ah regarding the kind of archetypical and it's a glorious photographs
but here with the mountain seems to be kind of the earth
straining upward and some kind of cataclysmic yearning and so this is
ascending that point where all also the underworld space brought up we get closest to heaven and then very often god graces a spike coming down from the heavens and dwelling on the mountain time it saved a privileged place of manifestation of the divine the ah funny
washington know which is the number on a portion and thousand and a bunch than others like is supposed to be like her i heard of musharraf
we the book
this sub where we have as benedict experience she recovered nurses indian mountain and looks like a maiden episode it's such a powerful force and you kid just look incredibly different way the ryzen inevitably you go right to that is you to have a power energy source for the whole
ah the most recent issue of no have a twitter romano the holy father went up to northern italy
to see these magnificent up mountains believers climb the amount of holiness this is the first so this is basic for her of all imagery
here sir
a coaches from a navajo a man as he's remembering his early years a wise elder among my people frequently used the phrase pin pay will be looked to the mountaintop while he was alive i first heard a twenty five years ago when i was seven years old as i was practicing for the first time to
participate in relay races we run in the pueblo country we give strength to the sun father as he journeys across the sky i was at one end of the each track which ran east to west the earth track like the path of the sun the old man who was blind called out to me and said young as you run
look to the mountain top and he pointed to tight on the western sacred mountain that the to our world which loomed off in the distance keep your gaze fixed on that mountain you will feel the miles melt beneath your feet do this in in time you will feel as if you can leap over bushes trees and even the river
i tried to understand what this last statement meant but i was too young
in a few days later i asked him if i could really learn to leap over tree tops he smiled and said whatever life's changes you may face remember always look to the mountain top for it so doing you looked greatness
remember this but no problem however graded may deem discouraged you this is the one thought i want to leave you with the that dem coming time and we shall meet again which will be on the mountain top some it's sir this is just the kind of thing that your votes in all these different religions and places throughout the world
old without evident possibility of fun it's not clear that that indian had read moses on mount sinai etc but there's something about that so that this basic image of a saint john of the cross for the spiritual journey in the contemplative life or the cloud this interior mounted
i think we can now claim just two nights ago and i'm sitting in the rotunda after vespers and it's like being within the mountain a mountain hollowed out a little sacred mountain like in the cave where the depths of the mountain so we got our own mountain we look to from well within the church should we journey into
to so other things about mountains yes there is a kind of electric depicting happen in a cave a your just already knows enough and he was a and that's where all the service to harm the hurt and never returned to his quiet so as a little like masculine feminine and episode of address
roger mountain on but it's burden to them and that's it well met with a woman somewhere
interesting transition now
ah into an interior right
and then we'll recover the napkin and as conscious vision mother you
that is a good process estimate and especially mountains have to be torn down and an empty up again
every mountain must be they know when i say an am and a hollow is or the feminine
my only hesitation is it some out are very masculine there but some out to incredibly feminine years and i was just thinking lot more time you a hint friendship so but yards mountains often are kind of and you climb up by rugged but the jewish jewish and technology
well interesting
i was first and occurred in my mind was i was talking ones haha oh and their the treasure is under the mountain and then you have to go down down down down down
a part of the arc titles everything as i'm now you have to go down for you know to get the training on the great at midnight
so it isn't it isn't that the only archetype perceptive the treasures at the top and you have to climb the mountain absolutely out after you enter at at a top go down got owls caught on camera
absolutely and dante's use of the mountain imagery in terms of he says he finds himself lost at the very beginning and but then he sees little glimmering months go straight up new realizes candy as go way down i to hell and then go up and not a purgatory to ascend to those records center yeah that's right concept there's are
kinds of things you could do with this for some people mountains will immediately resonate for some people again language going to the center are going to the depths we would also if we had time want to claim fully that is credible art type of the ocean out there are the waters etc but there were there are very agitated on the surface you go down down down to the
hidden treasure that so but this is one archetype that so to claim this not as kind of it some kind of an imperialistic of but work with it to see where it helps and where it also very much as ltd et cetera
my nose and robert bly work so up
june it was a young data centers and especially district or groups of the that young and rubicam yes announced in the ash who knows that upwards presidents only has to be ballasted know even even overcome
go he sees her to process
huh
and then often as cynics is pictured somehow right up there at the top of the mountain just stow with a loin cloth or so we just sitting meditating on at all where the things the map tab gives you up when you're not in the cloud is this incredible horizon over the whole
but all right
yes
then i was a they get requested to man special image that first hey lisa person to feel about this those groups i'm both because themes of cheered her on away the diamonds
and hey burden becomes a big a very rich theme for the eastern orthodox because there will be the height of prayer each one of us gets transfigured is some have experience in the like that's right from the top of the mountain
just to anticipate your run a homework assignment for next time several of these mountains are a lot related to clouds it's the one that goes together with the other
but are talking about tabor and talking about sinai to to think about clouds in the old testament think about how that his heart could take them to and this is good to claim because every every regular to here where we're in the cloud through the fog but yeah of the whole the whole goal of the
contemplative life is to open ourselves to that
uncreated light of taper for the eastern church and should look to the mountain is this up old man is telling the
and to look for the covenant sinai and the new covenant all we didn't get one mountain we left one now note
i'm how does jesus begin his earthly ministry the sermon on the mount that's right he goes into amount and there he sits down use the new moses nice giving kind of the new covenant there's lots of grass around there so all these people can sit down on the mount
so good so i think we need airport i'll put his book out on the library tv and again this year basic homework assignment is each one of you to claim mountains as you find them helpful not i've got an incredible postcard collection of mountains that growing up in denver
when the air was clearly which just look over there is incredible range of the rocky mountains but here get also right on the side of the mountains
all right so we want to look at the cloud first of all i think it be good to plot where the particular practice than the cloud is talking about fits into the monastic day we gotta be realistic here as the cloud is realistic
it's not as if we can be living the cloud prayer in its fullness and purity and direction directness every moment of the day princess here we're in a classroom and the cloud prayer ideally once silence and probably subdued light six hundred said this is not a
ideal situation for praying the cloud prayer directly but it's not excluded that the the cloud prayer be experienced also in the classroom so this is a very simple scheme on p with
very much
to simplify you might think a for my always is divided into three basic parts and you can put them in any order this isn't i guess sending the mountain or something so i think the onto the cloud or someone like just across would say this is the way it works were going from the door of areas of amount to the top here and you
can accept that are not as you want to but there's the part of the day that takes most of the time there's our work study recreation gases sleep
great to spend a lot of time on contemplative prayer and speak or god is also your unconscious are very mysterious things are happening through also contemplative prayer in our sweep it's also recreation we try to push and reason to prove different states very different dynamics commander in and of different ways that people
thought and then work
as somebody who says we shouldn't just see you i want to get it over as soon as possible so i can get back and stuff i like some out in and through work there should be a contemplative capacity here a form of prayer that brain which showed the system jesus prayer he wouldn't have time with really going on as helping us through
throughout the day thinking them all up
and of how many of you know lawrence's our practice in the presence of god
that's a classic his basic point is there's not a special place where with god and and we forget god god is everywhere and anything we do now you can simply be with god it was simple it he was a card like a brother cook and duff shoemaker and subject and arrived in
extremely deep intimate union with god simply by being with god wherever because god is forever
so are these are two ways to strengthen always being a in this whole block and time it isn't directly sacred chalice isn't directly satisfy where your on up pots and pans and pots or pans with their three house to something go in the monastic
context in in a certain way everything is rendered sacred that this is the most second with for most kind of of the daily routine
but if we can be with god here than that very much facilities being with god and these elements the second one is set aside specifically for prayer but it's not the particular kind of prayer that author the cloud he's talking about immediately vintage vehicles large restaurant
lawyers and post them all the hubris is this a higher woman accused him of god the debts and of the cetera wagner jr insurgency and strength to get a sense of how we can be contemplative in literature
father of eight or it if he's evil he's going to take the next series of these talks ah and go specifically into liturgy contemplation so i won't get touching they're just say some fine very congenial this form of being to god they can
tend to underway this inevitably from periods this will be experience almost as obstacle liturgy also pelaccio devotions like ceo use our practices quality is deeply into god but through the mediation of a whole network of signs and symbols and
at history and gestures etc if we can stay in there with any kind of sadness
i think and if we go deep enough into the words into the action in the music we can find some kind of residents between the out there that the basic thrust of the song and are just being with god as here dealing with a poor person places we visited st vincent de paul
yesterday or if if i'm there then that situation whatever it is that person will never it is liberties i can be saffron before me christ and so sorry the good of god to a maxi all for instance a whole purpose is to go from as you remember last you have any
toss your what's your point and matsuyama the same of energy that you want to take us into the deepest mystery of god wants to be worried and assignments so give options the rosary
our a profit them prayer said there's probably lots more mystics out there and they were and we think of the there's a little ladies who in the back of the church praying the rosary and they're not thinking about every meditation you're just an very students deep union with god loving him to articulated but that
repetition of the here we are in your father very much nelson
you can do look at a trinitarian thing years it can be very forced but of the our final stage is how this is what the cloud is all about islam some of us experience with these moments in particular way after vespers or after law to go
showing marcel son was also been that to give him least twenty minutes thirty minutes a day to silent prayer that's the moment that the author thomas talk about that's the moment to rest is talking about in the i can to the castle as we journey deeper into the castle that's another image she goes for the outer to
the inner with all these complicated rooms and mansions and outside there's all this voice and although serpents remember with this are some things but as we can go deeper and the central chamber is the bridegroom
so that's that's as the same thing and you'll get there through this silent prayer will be hearing the word world as we get into the third mentioned before it's the same thing but that's here
so we can feel a little frustrated if we read the cloud and then realized was so much of the day i can't just be there in silence seated and centered but the cloud is quite a of that
now but give me that these others rightly they support this very much as as for the more sense if you're distracted we can go into this kind of prayer it's that we should have been with not enough rest of it but it works the other if you're living these twenty minutes half an hour an hour to wherever date
then inevitably that up awareness of a communion with god extends and then the energy becomes alive for within and colored see or new insights contemplative insights into scripture and center and the devotions subject and then work and recreation center not to see all
seven different sort of chart your own by very concretely turns your own obedient since in your own rhythm and going to energy and to try to see how it can be a thing with one place and together usually supports the other one can reclaim each one of the yesterday
modalities above since the minister chemo but certainly to feel your love as we journey deep into the history of the godhead of the father
jesus often went off into a mountain to pray and certainly to address but it's also the place of spousal love in jose up your way leads his famous beloved into the desert to her again and that whole thing about and
parts of parental love yeah it's fragile
divine child with the end which we missed very carefully take care of that's a dimension of love which can be lived in this
well you can't say that a friendship love is characteristic in primary it may work some different way for you have to work at all up and in touch with all of that range of experiences human love and related to these different moments but jesus says the key pass for one would i call you no longer absurd
gifts with friends and as we gather in the literature as friends to for the comment
our praise god it's also very much few the i love sweet dress on a father in the spirit etc but this it's christ the high priest who gathers i said previously been celebrated etc the word of god so you can relate if you implement this level especially when the sun and then it really
thanks to all of a spear like and to keep us going through the rest of us the prayer of the heart the rest of the day without just getting totally scattered central and to move into the mystery of the dark area sweep into the shattered my nursing dreams it so this isn't kind of a map of a day to say remote
member it's particularly in this one moment that we're focused on but it's a moment so potent that it came up be as eleven for all the rest centuries the senate if a personal a good twenty minutes a day to this silent prayer everything will change
questions comments

to submit make sense with three
the fighting spirit town
well you know a strangers even with our enemy that's what recalled to live those other two up as francis embraces the leper or a were to be patient to a lovely pair today with patient sometimes that's a very
important dimension of christian but we don't just love people we like kind of think so that's what we can exercise that also a contemplative way
francis had all this aversion to leprosy he couldn't stand them but he did least this is a anticipating my son francis family but finally he gets soft a and embraces the leper that just changes his whole life he says that's when everything just turned around so that for him was a very contemplative moment he
he wasn't in the rotunda doing saucer or something but he had a very contemplative moment and he said at that point the leper was christ for him as he found out in a dream that nineties
so we shouldn't constrict and confine our contemplative life to one area but know that there is a privileged practice a privileged space the whole tradition would say that can nourish all the rest and without a real practice of that the other
can start becoming kind of unraveled and
distracted in the etymological since pulled apart
other questions
so i'll be true you might make your own kind of map of the day and where each type of prayer fits in each type of contemplative practice and hopefully how they are supporting each other or aren't so much
so with that let's go back to the cloud and then see this practice and what he says about it through school hand out our handouts
now this is a wholly by
the guess yes insistence
so there in order to peaches

so first of all you find in the cloud which you find in lots of these contemplative classics that is an exhortation and x and encouragement because it's not easy sticking at it very soon the question comes up what on earth am i doing here i'm not doing much of anything if i just wasting my
time to pure illusion of three there's enough of these
abraham go to me so i guess for team is right right
so if you can have paid sixty
what's the use of it what's the value of this chapter nine
and the subtitle chapter nine as crime that the most sublime thoughts are more hindrance than help during the time of contemplative prayer this again is sublime is interesting issue and send up etc so there's nothing that has the value of this contemplative prayer
if you go down about nine lines in a little for i tell you
i would tell you this one loving blind desire for god alone is more valuable in itself more pleasing to god and to the saints more beneficial to your own growth and more helpful to your friends from living and dead than anything else you could do
whether we believe this or don't it's incredible claim this is a very seriously illusion and i think every catholic and orthodox theologian would ultimately agree with this is one real moment of contemplative union with god is what all eternity will be all about and is more valuable than writing manuscripts brilliant and of
you're preaching to immense crowds jump across goes on and on in this is fair to be there in solid to just with god in one instance of this for all of humanity and our preaching and converting tens of thousands etc
and you are more blessed to experience the interior affection of this love within the darkness that the cloud of annoying the to contemplate the angels and saints or to hear the birth and melanie their heavenly festival here is taking a little pot shot at richard roll a deer contemporary of his who's a very
enthusiastic of mr glass all these wonderful experiences his body actually heats up in mystical priority hears music and he feels things etc is a very for kind of mystic and altered the cloud says with the kind of a guide ever
put down since that's all very well and good but just one instance of this is the in the darkness of the cloud is worth more than all of them rest of us and again china shot across with absolutely agree also terms of visions and special prophecies etc this is our answer to all the stuff that's happening and now
now around the world of special messages from our lady and special secret of this none of that is worth a fraction of just one moment of authentic contemplative prayer
and at it's best if you read all these messages and medjugorje the art persevere more in prayer and be more hold the etc just wanted to guide us back into the contemplative
here use this up with a the darkness of the cloud this of course jotted across will take on directly there's some debate did children across know the cloud there's not direct evidence that think they found that yet but some hypothesize some kind of emphasis but this darkness image goes right back to
a pseudo dionysius and to gregory of nyssa as classic way of
expressing what happens a while because you go into the cloud it's no longer clear i see this watch very clearly and it's ten forty four etc that's not the way we encounter god the mystery of god it s'more a darkening of the faculty simply because
the super abundance of light of god as the sun blinds or i saw in total darkness
so as we enter into the divine presence services darkness so the exhortation as to really value that steven though they'll be the moments where it seems like of just no value whatever
then there's the scruple but i'm not worthy this is too lofty and exalted and sublime and i know this defect that doubt and this sin in my past and the some lukewarm this now etc
worry about that if we're all caught up in our own unworthiness this is just stop the way satan tries to keep us from our for contemplative vocation
so here's this i think magnificent one liner about how god seizes it is not what you are know what you have been that god sees with this all merciful eyes but what you desire to be so we all yearn to be christians and to be good christians and to live in full unity with all of crush that
it's what god sees
and it's amazing way also have seen other people when we aren't feeling very attracted to them you know but what is the deepest desire
of that's how god sees them that's kind of the contemplative perspective
so the remote preparation for this prayer again remembering that that's this one might be a half hour in the morning and half hour and an evening or it might be minimum of twenty minute period or might be for some people in our in the morning not or whatever what's the remote preparation well first of all liturgy which is to be prayed with real reverence
people say well there's not much literature in the cloud so it's not a particularly christian catholic book not at all a presupposes that as just the kind of foundational prayer that we regularly go back to that we journey from i do not mean to imply that liturgical prayer is neglected on
on the contrary the true contemplative has the highest esteem for the liturgy and is careful and exact in celebrating it in continuity with the tradition of our fathers chapter thirty seven so and then meditation good work of obedience humility always stay
weeks after all this is preparation so that when you go there were ready
the immediate preparation he's trying to get us again so that this half hour won't just be a crazy time loss that extremely fruitful the first thing is to forget forget all the things that the world this again is not when you're on duty in the guesthouse in the phone is ringing
and you're bringing up someone you'll just forget it all and going to bliss through something this is this particular moment of the day but again this will help you when you are in the guest house hopefully but in this particular moment for a kid all the rest this is not the moment to worry about
whether i don't know your roof is leaking or whether you were supposed to get that phone call or whether set all that side set aside even the most pious the most devout the most sublime theological reflections
this is a a difficult time for priests you know they have to preach you for five or six days or something i find often and that are all kinds of insights come for the homily in all kinds of connections it's just
just quieted down if they're valid enough they'll come back
forget everything certainly sin don't get caught up in oh my god i was unfaithful and this and i got this and he has this lovely image you just roll all your sins of today and your whole life into a ball and then just roll them over to god and that god play with this ball or do whatever he wants but be free of it and it goes on and on
on if mary magdalen instead of just going over it and claim to christ and worried about why since then and then i seen that she'd never get onto christ so forget your sins
oh so it's not that we disdain all this rest it's not that it's an unimportant to us it should this isn't the moment for it everything has its moment this is the one to one quality spousal time with the beloved it's like with two were married they love their kids they love their jobs they
do their jobs well and she wants to cook for him well the next day etc but at the moment when they go into the inner chamber close the door and just totally for those two they want to give each other totally that's what this is all about
so before that again the
the the preparation is to order our loves not to you know
not to eradicate our love of friendship and fraternal love at sentra but to order it so it's all focused on this one love of god with all our heart mind soul and strength
father tug well the dominican as a lovely introduction to the cloud in the polish edition
our aim must not be just to transfer all our effectivity to god but to reach a state of ordered love in which all our affections fall into place around our central loved for god hears i think how this mountain image convert if at least in the moment of this
prayer it can be likened to an ascent to the top then if we can her and quiet the rest the whole eastern christian thing of his key of stillness still seeing and hearing and feeling that tasting the spelling and the feelings and the memory and imagination and intellect just quiet it all into a mess
mysterious silence