Far be it, Lord, far be it from the heart of your servant who is confessing here to you, far be it from me to think that I am happy, be the joy what it may. For there is a joy which is not given to me ungodly, but to those who love you for your own sake, whose joy is you yourself. And this is the happy life: to rejoice in you, of you, for you. This is true joy and there is no other, and not the true joy. yet their will is not turned except by some semblance of joy.

Is it, then, not certain that all wish to be happy, inasmuch as they who do not wish to joy in you (which is the only happy life) do not truly desire the happy life? Or do all men desire this, but the flesh strives against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, so that they cannot do what they wish to do? Do they then settle on that which they can do, and are content with that, because they do not desire strongly enough what they cannot do to make them able to do it?

For if I ask anyone if he would rather rejoice in truth or falsehood, he will hesitate as little to say "In the truth" as he would to say that he desires to be happy. But a happy life is joy in the truth, for this is rejoicing in you, who are the Truth, O God, my Light, the Health of my countenance and my God. This happy life all desire; all desire this life which is the only happy life, for all desire to rejoice in the truth. I have met with many who would deceive others; none who want to be deceived. And when they love a happy life, which is nothing else than rejoicing in the truth, then they also love the truth - which they could not love if there were not some knowledge of it in their memory. Why then, do they not rejoice in it? Why are they not happy? Because they are more strongly occupied with other things which have more power to make them miserable than that which they so dimly remember has to make them happy. For there is yet a little in men; let them walk, lest the darkness overtake them.

But why does truth generate hatred, and why does your servant, preaching the truth, become their enemy, since a happy life is loved, which is nothing else but rejoicing in the truth? How is this so unless the truth is loved in such a way that those who love something else want what they love to be the truth? And because they do not want to be deceived, they do not want to be convinced that they are. Therefore, they hate the truth, for the sake of the thing they love instead of the truth.

They love the truth when it enlightens, they hate it when it reproves. Since they would not be deceived, yet would deceive, they love it when it reveals itself to them, but hate it when it reveals them to themselves. Thus, the truth shall repay them, by exposing those who do not wish to be exposed by it, and yet not revealing itself to them. Thus, thus, yes, thus does the mind of ma - blind, sick, foul and ill-behaved - wish to be hidden, but does not want anything hidden from it. But the very opposite happens. The mind is not happen from the truth, while the truth remains hidden from it. Happy then will it be, when without any other distraction, it shall rejoice in that sole Truth by which all things are true.

See what a space I have covered in my memory in seeking you, O Lord! And I have not found you outside it, nor have I found anything concerning you but what I retained in my memory ever since I learned of you. Since I learned of you I have not forgotten you. Where I found truth, there I found my God, the Truth itself. And since I learned this I have not forgotten it. Thus, since the time I learned of you, you have resided in my memory. There I find you when I call you to remembrance, and delight in you. These are my holy delights which you have given me in your mercy, being mindful of my poverty.

But where do you abide in my memory, O Lord? Where do you abide there? What kind of dwelling place have you made for yourself there? What kind of sanctuary have you built there for yourself? You have given this honor to my memory, to abide in it; but in what part of it you dwell - that I am pondering. For in thinking about you, I passed beyond such parts of it as the animals have, for I did not find you there among corporeal things. And I came to those areas in which I stored the affections of my mind, and did not find you there.

Then, I entered into the inner-most seat of my mind - which the mind has in my memory, since the mind remembers itself - but you were not there. For as you are not a corporeal image, nor the affection of a living being (as when we rejoice, sympathize with, desire, fear, remember, forget, or the like) so neither are you the mind itself. Because you are the Lord God of the mind, and all these things change, but you remain unchangeable over them all - and yet you have vouchsafed to dwell in my memory ever since I learned of you. So why do I now seek to know the part of my memory in which you dwell, as if there were places in the mind? Assuredly, you dwell in it since I have remembered you ever since I learned of you, and since I find you there when I call you to remembrance.

Where then did I find that I might learn of you? You were not in my memory before I learned of you. Where did I find you, that I might learn of you, but in yourself, above myself. Place there is none; we go backward and forward, and there is no 'place' [location] Everywhere, O Truth, you hear those who ask counsel of you, and answer all of them at once, though they ask your counsel on many different things. You answer them clearly, though they do not hear clearly. All consult you on whatever they wish, though they do not always hear back what they wish. He is your best servant who looks not so much to hear what he desires from you, as to desire that which he hears from you.

Too late have I loved you, O Beauty, ancient yet ever new. Too late have I loved you! And behold, you were within, but I was outside, searching for you there - plunging, deformed amid those fair forms which you had made. You were with me, but I was not with you. Things held me far from you, which , unless they were in you did not exist at all. You called and shouted, and burst my deafness. You gleamed and shone upon me, and chased away my blindness. You breathed fragrant odours on me, and I held back my breath, but now I pant for you. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and now I yearn for your peace.

When I come to be united with you with my whole self, I shall no more sorrow or labor, and my life shall be wholly alive, being wholly full of you! You lift up the one you fill, but I am still a burden to myself, because I am not full of you. Lamentable joys strive with joyous sorrows: and on which side the victory will be I do not know. Woe is me! Lord, have mercy on me. My evil sorrows strive with my good joys; and I do not know on which side the victory may be. Woe is me! Lord, have mercy on me! Woe is me! See! I do not hide my wounds; you are the Physician, I the sick. You are the merciful, I the miserable one. Is not the life of man upon earth all trail?

Who wishes for troubles and difficulties? You command them to be endured, not to be loved. No man loves what he endures, though he may love to endure. For though he rejoices that he endures, he would rather there were nothing for him to endure. In adversity, I long for prosperity; in prosperity I fear adversity. What middle ground is there between these two - where the life of man is not all trail? Woe to the prosperities of the world, twice woe-woe from fear of adversity and woe from corruption of joy! Woe to the adversities of this world, twice woe, and triple woe: woe from longing for prosperity, woe because adversity itself is a hard thing, and woe for fear that it may make a shipwreck of our endurance! Is not the life of man upon earth all trail without intermission?

And all my hope is only in your exceeding great mercy. Give what you command, and command what you will. You command self-restraint, and "When I knew" said one, "that no man can be continent unless God gave it, that was a point of wisdom also to know whose gift it is." For by self-restraint, verily, we are bound up and brought back together into wholeness, whereas, we had been splintered in many ways. For he loves you too little who loves anything else with you which he does not love for you. O love, whoever burns and is never quenched! O Charity, my God! Enkindle me. You command continence; give me what you command and command what you will.

Truly, you command that I should be continent from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. You have commanded self-restraint from fornication, and as for wedlock itself, you have counselled something better than what you have permitted. And since you gave it, it was done, even before I became a minister of your Sacrament. But there yet lives in my memory (of which I have spoken at length) the images of such things as my bad habits had fixed there. These rush into my thoughts when I am awake, but in my sleep they not only seem pleasurable, but even to obtain my consent in what very closely resembles reality.

Yes, the illusion of the images so far prevails in my soul and in my flesh, that when I am asleep, false visions persuade me to what the true ones cannot when I am awake. Am I not myself at such times, O Lord my God? There is yet so much difference between myself and myself in that instant in which I pass from walking to sleeping, or return from sleeping to walking! Where is reason, then, which resists such suggestions when awake and remains unmoved when such suggestions are urged on it? Is it closed up when my eyes are closed? Is it lulled asleep with the senses of the body? But whence is it that often, even in sleep, we resist and mindful of our purpose and continuing most chastely in it, give no assent to such enticements? And there is yet so much difference that, when it happens otherwise, upon waking we return to peace of conscience, and by this very difference in the two states, discover that it was not we who did it, while we feel sorry that in some way it was done in us.

Is not your hand able, O Almighty God, to heal all the diseases of my soul and by your more abundant grace able to quench even the lascivious motions of my sleep? You will increase your gifts in me more and more, Lord, that my soul may follow me to you, disengaged from the bird-lime of lust; that it may not be in rebellion against itself, and may not commit in dreams through these sensual images those debasing corruptions, even to pollution of the flesh, nor give consent to them.

For it is not too hard for the Almighty to work this - that nothing of this sort should have the very least influence over the pure affections of a sleeper, not even so slight a one as a thought might hold back - not just sometime during this life, but even at my present age, for you are able to do more than we can ask or think. But what I still am in this kind of evil, I have confessed to my good lord, rejoicing with trembling in that which you have given me, and bemoaning that in which I am still imperfect; trusting that you will perfect your mercies in me, even to fullness of peace, which my outward and inward man shall have with you, when death is swallowed up in victory.

There is another evil of the day which I wish were sufficient unto it. For by eating and drinking we repair the daily decays of the body, until you destroy both food and belly, when you shall slay my emptiness with a wonderful fullness, and clothe this corruptible with an eternal incorruption. But for the present, necessity is sweet to me, and I fight against this sweetness lest I be taken captive by it. I carry on a daily war by fasting, often bringing my body into subjection. And my pains are expelled by pleasure. For hunger and thirst are, in a manner, pains. They burn and kill like a fever unless the medicine of nourishment comes to relieve us. Since they are readily at hand from the comfort we receive through your gifts (with which land, water and air serve our weakness) our calamity is called pleasure.

This much you have taught me, that I should train myself to take food as medicine. But while i am passing from the discomfort of emptiness to the satisfaction of fullness, in that very passage the snare of lust lies in wait for me. For that passage itself is pleasurable; there is no other way to pass to that state of fullness, and necessity forces us to pass. And although health is the reason for eating and drinking, yet a dangerous delight accompanies it, and frequently tries to control it in order that I may do for enjoyment's sake what I say I do, or wish to do, for health's sake. health and pleasure do not have the same limits. What is enough for health is too little for pleasure. And it is often questionable whether it is necessary care of the body which still asks nourishment, or whether a sensual snare of desire wants to be served.

In this uncertainty, my unhappy soul rejoices and prepares in it an excuse to shield, glad that it is not clearly apparent what would suffice for the moderation of health, so that under the cloak of health it may conceal the business of pleasure. These temptations I try to resist daily, and I call your right hand to my aid, and refer my perplexities to you, because as yet I have no clear resolution in this matter.

I hear the voice of my God commanding, Let not your heart be overcharged with immoderate indulgence and drunkenness. Drunkenness is far from me; you will have mercy that it may never come near me. But over-eating sometimes creeps up on your servant; you will have mercy that it may depart from me. For no man can be continent unless you give it. You give us many things that we pray for, and whatever good we have received before we prayed, we received it from you. Yes, we received it from you that we might afterward know that we received it from you. I was never a drunkard, but I have known drunkards who were made sober by you. It was from you, then, that they who never were drunkards might not be so, and it was your gift that both might know that it was from you.

I heard another voice of yours: "Do not follow your lusts and refrain yourself from your pleasures." And by your grace I have heard that which I have greatly loved: Neither if we eat are we the better; nor if we do not eat are we the worse. Which is to say, neither shall the one make me abound, nor the other make me miserable. I heard another also: For I have learned in whatever state I am, therewith to be content; I know how to abound and bow to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. See there a soldier of the heavenly camp - the dust as we are. But remember, Lord that we are dust, and that of dust you have made man, and he was lost and is found. He [Paul] could not do this by his own strength, because he whom I so love who said these things through the breath of your inspiration, was made of the same dust. He says, I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Strengthen me, that I may be able; grant what you command, and command what you will. He confesses to have received, and when he glories, he glories in the Lord. Another person I have heard begging that he might receive: "Take from me" he says, "the greediness of the belly." From this it appears to me, O my holy God, that when that is done which you command, it is by your gift that it is done.

You have taught me, good Father, that to the pure all things are pure; but that it is evil to the man who gives offence in eating. And that every creature of yours is good, and nothing is to be refused which is received with thanksgiving; and that food does not commend us to God, and that no man should judge us in food or drink; that he who eats should not despise him who does not eat; and that he who does not eat should not judge him who eats. 

These things have I learned, thanks and praise be to you, my God, my Master, knocking at the door of my ears, enlightening my heart, delivering me out of all temptation. I do not fear the uncleanness of food, but the uncleanness of lust. I know that Noah was permitted to eat all kinds of flesh that was good for food. I know also that Elijah was fed with flesh; that John, endured with a wonderful abstinence, was not polluted by eating locusts alive, which he fed on. I know, too, that Esau was deceived by craving lentils, and that David blamed himself for desiring a drink of water; and that our King was tempted, not by flesh, but bread. Therefore the people in the wilderness deserved to be reproved, too - not so much for desiring flesh, but because, in their desire for food, they murmured against the Lord.

Placed, then, amid these temptations, I strive daily against lust for food and drink. For it is not the kind [of temptation] that I can resolve to cut off once and for all, and never touch it afterward, as I did with fornication. The bridle of the throat, therefore, is to be held moderately between slackness and strictness. And who is he, O Lord, who is not carried in some degree beyond the bounds of necessity in it? Whoever he is, he is a great one! Let him magnify your name. But I am not such a one, for I am a sinful man. Yet I, too, magnify your name, and he who has overcome the world makes intercession to you for my sins, numbering me among the weak members of his body, because your eyes have overlooked on my imperfect being and in your book shall all be written.

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -