Living Lent Interiorly
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As St. Augustine wrote:
“Re-enter your heart! Where do you want to go, far from yourself? Re-enter from your wandering which has led you outside the way; return to the Lord. He is quick. First re-enter into your heart, you who have become a stranger to yourself, because of your wandering outside: you do not know yourself, and seek him who has created you!”
When St. Francis de Sales founded the Visitation Order, he chose to base it on the rule of St. Augustine. These passages about the interior life of the soul are taken seriously! Beginning in his Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis writes:
“For my part, Philothea, I could never approve of the method of those who,’ to reform a man begin with his exterior, such as his gestures, his dress, or his hair. On the contrary, I think we ought to begin with his interior : ‘Be converted to me, with your whole heart.’”
St. Francis continues with another piece of advice, from the lives of the saints:
“When the father or mother of St. Catherine of Siena had deprived her of a place and leisure to pray and meditate, our Lord inspired her to make a little oratory within her soul, into which, retiring mentally, she might, amidst her everyday affairs, attend to this holy mental solitude ; and when the world afterwards assaulted her, she received no in convenience from it, because, as she said, she had shut herself up in her interior closet, where she comforted herself with her heavenly Spouse. From her own experience of this exercise, she afterwards counseled her spiritual children to make a room within their hearts, and to abide therein.”
Can we apply these concepts to our Lenten journey? To prepare for Sunday’s chat, please read our article, “Living Lent Interiorly”.
In our Living Jesus Chat Room this Sunday, we will discuss these points:
- In a busy world full of distractions, how can we shut out the “noise” and find quite? Why does God often choose to speak to us in the silence?
- When St. Augustine asks us to ‘re-enter our hearts’, what does he mean? How do we “wander outside of” our hearts in the first place?
- Our priorities are often wrong, concerned with the physical rather than the spiritual. Is there a proper balance, or are the spiritual needs always superior?
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Come to our Living Jesus Chat Room, 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM Eastern Time U.S. this Sunday. Sign up here and get your own username, or