Episode 9 Beginning to Pray:  “Heaven in Faith”  Day 5 Prayer 1 – “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”

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Dr. Anthony Lilles is a Catholic husband and father of three teaching Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. He  teaches spiritual theology and spiritual direction to transitional deacons, and the spiritual classics to the men who enter the Spirituality Year, a year of prayer in preparation for seminary formation.  He is the author of the “Beginning to Pray”  catholic blog spot.

From “Heaven in Faith: Day 5 Prayer 1” found in The Complete Works vol 1:

17. Behold, I stand at the door and knock, If any man listens to My voice and opens the door to Me, I ell come in to him and sup with him, and he with Me.” Blessed the ears of the soul alert enough, recollected enough to hear the voice of the Word of God; blessed also the eyes of this soul which in the light of a deep and living faith can witness the “coming of the Master into His intimate sanctuary.'”

 

For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles

This the text we are using to discuss “Heaven in Faith” you can find it here and order from the Carmelite Sisters

 

We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series

Episode 8 Beginning to Pray:  “Heaven in Faith”  Day 4 Prayer 2 – “I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I long to see it burn”

[powerpress]

Dr. Anthony Lilles is a Catholic husband and father of three teaching Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. He  teaches spiritual theology and spiritual direction to transitional deacons, and the spiritual classics to the men who enter the Spirituality Year, a year of prayer in preparation for seminary formation.  He is the author of the “Beginning to Pray”  catholic blog spot.

From “Heaven in Faith: Day 4 Prayer 2” found in The Complete Works vol 1:

16. But to attain to this love the soul must first be “entirely surrendered,  its “will must be calmly lost in God’s will; so that its “inclinations,” “its faculties” “move only in this love and for the sake of this love.  I do every with love, I suffer everything with love:  this is what David meant when he sang, ‘I will keep all my strength for You.'”

 

For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles

This the text we are using to discuss “Heaven in Faith” you can find it here and order from the Carmelite Sisters

 

We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series

Episode 7 Beginning to Pray:  “Heaven in Faith”  Day 4 Prayer 1 – “Our God, wrote St. Paul, is a consuming Fire”

[powerpress]

Dr. Anthony Lilles is a Catholic husband and father of three teaching Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. He  teaches spiritual theology and spiritual direction to transitional deacons, and the spiritual classics to the men who enter the Spirituality Year, a year of prayer in preparation for seminary formation.  He is the author of the “Beginning to Pray”  catholic blog spot.

From “Heaven in Faith: Day 4 Prayer 1” found in The Complete Works vol 1:

13. “Dues ignis consumens,” Our God, wrote St. Paul, is a consuming Fire, that is a “a fire of love” which destroys, which “transforms into itself everything that it touches.” “The delights of the divine enkindling are renewed in our depths by an unremitting activity:  the enkindling of love in a mutual and eternal satisfaction.  It is a renewal that takes place at every moment in there eternally,  and this is the silence in which, somehow, they have lost themselves.”  “Freed from their prison, they sail on the Ocean of Divinity without any creature being an obstacle or hindrance to them.”

 

For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles

This the text we are using to discuss “Heaven in Faith” you can find it here and order from the Carmelite Sisters

 

We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series

Episode 6 Beginning to Pray:  “Heaven in Faith”  Day 3 Prayer 2 – “You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God”

[powerpress]

Dr. Anthony Lilles is a Catholic husband and father of three teaching Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. He  teaches spiritual theology and spiritual direction to transitional deacons, and the spiritual classics to the men who enter the Spirituality Year, a year of prayer in preparation for seminary formation.  He is the author of the “Beginning to Pray”  catholic blog spot.

From “Heaven in Faith: Day 3 Prayer 2” found in The Complete Works vol 1:

11. “You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God”  St. Paul comes to bring us a light to guide us on the pathway of the abyss.  “You have died”!  What does that mean but that the soul that aspires to live close to God “in the invincible fortress of holy recollection” must be “set apart, stripped, and withdrawn from all things” (in spirit).  This soul “finds within itself a simple ascending movement of love to God, whatever creatures may do; it is invincible to things which” pass away, “for it transcends them, seeking God alone.”

 

For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles

This the text we are using to discuss “Heaven in Faith” you can find it here and order from the Carmelite Sisters

 

We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series

Episode 5 Beginning to Pray:  “Heaven in Faith”  Day 3 Prayer 1 – “We will come to him and make our home in him“

[powerpress]

Dr. Anthony Lilles is a Catholic husband and father of three teaching Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. He  teaches spiritual theology and spiritual direction to transitional deacons, and the spiritual classics to the men who enter the Spirituality Year, a year of prayer in preparation for seminary formation.  He is the author of the “Beginning to Pray”  catholic blog spot.

From “Heaven in Faith: Day 3 Prayer 1” found in The Complete Works vol 1:

8. … “Each incident, each event, each suffering, as well as each joy, is a sacrament which gives God to it; so it no longer makes a distinction between these things;  it surmounts them, goes beyond them to rest in its Master, above all things.  It “exalts” Him high on the “mountain of its heart,” yes, “higher than His gifts, His consolation, higher than the sweetness that descends from Him.” “The property of love is never to seek self, to keep back nothing, but to give everything to the one it loves.”  “Blessed the soul that loves” in truth; “the Lord has become its captive through love”!

 

For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles

This the text we are using to discuss “Heaven in Faith” you can find it here and order from the Carmelite Sisters

 

We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series

Episode 4 Beginning to Pray:  “Heaven in Faith”  Day 2 Prayer 2 – “Hurry and Come Down”

[powerpress]

Dr. Anthony Lilles is a Catholic husband and father of three teaching Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. He  teaches spiritual theology and spiritual direction to transitional deacons, and the spiritual classics to the men who enter the Spirituality Year, a year of prayer in preparation for seminary formation.  He is the author of the “Beginning to Pray”  catholic blog spot.

From “Heaven in Faith: Day 2 Prayer 2” found in The Complete Works vol 1:

8. “As long as our will has fancies that are foreign to divine union, whims that are now yes, now no, we are like children:  we do not advance with giant steps in love for fire has not yet burnt up all the alloy; the gold is not pure; we are still seeking ourselves; God has not consumed” all our hostility to Him.  But when the boiling cauldron has consumed “every imperfect love, every imperfect sorrow, every imperfect fear,” “then love is perfect and the golden ring of our alliance is larger than Heaven and earth.  The is the secret cellar in which love places his elect,” this “love leads us by ways and paths known to him alone and he leads us with no turning back, for we will not retrace our steps.”

 

For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles

This the text we are using to discuss “Heaven in Faith” you can find it here and order from the Carmelite Sisters

 

We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series

Episode 3 Beginning to Pray:  “Heaven in Faith”  Day 2 Prayer 1 – “The Kingdom of God is Within You”

[powerpress]

Dr. Anthony Lilles is a Catholic husband and father of three teaching Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. He  teaches spiritual theology and spiritual direction to transitional deacons, and the spiritual classics to the men who enter the Spirituality Year, a year of prayer in preparation for seminary formation.  He is the author of the “Beginning to Pray”  catholic blog spot.

From “Heaven in Faith: Day 2 Prayer 1” found in The Complete Works vol 1:

6. The same saint also says that “God is the center of the soul.  So when the soul with all” its “strength will know God perfectly, love and enjoy Him fully, then it will have reached the deepest center that can be attained in Him.”  Before attaining this, the soul is already “in God who is its center,” “but it is not yet in its deepest center, for it can still go further.  Since love is what unites us to God, the more intense this love is, the more deeply the soul enters into God and the more it is centered in Him.  When it “possess even one degree of love it is already in its center”; but when this love has attained its perfection, the soul will have penetrated into its deepest enter.  There it will be transformed to the point of becoming very like God.”

 

For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles

This the text we are using to discuss “Heaven in Faith” you can find it here and order from the Carmelite Sisters

 

We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series

Episode 2 Beginning to Pray:  “Heaven in Faith”  Day 1 Prayer 2 – “Abyss calls to Abyss”

[powerpress]

Dr. Anthony Lilles is a Catholic husband and father of three teaching Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. He  teaches spiritual theology and spiritual direction to transitional deacons, and the spiritual classics to the men who enter the Spirituality Year, a year of prayer in preparation for seminary formation.  He is the author of the “Beginning to Pray”  catholic blog spot.

From “Beginning to Pray: Your Life Hidden in Christ“:

Elisabeth of the Trinity says that the journey to contemplative prayer (which she refers to as the pathway of the abyss), requires that we die to trying to live merely by natural lights. Instead we must seek to live hidden with Christ in God. She taught this because she understood the peace and strength such a life provides – she herself thrived in it. Christ is the supernatural Light, the inexhaustible source of loving knowledge of God in our hearts. If we live by the loving knowledge that Christ alone provides we discover that we are invincible to things which “pass away”, for our hearts transcend them, “seeking God alone.” (Heaven in Faith, #11).

 

Other episodes in the series can be found here

This the text we are using to discuss “Heaven in Faith” you can find it here and order from the Carmelite Sisters

 

We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series

 

For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles

Episode 1 Beginning to Pray:  “Heaven in Faith”  Day 1 Prayer 1  – “Remain in Me”

[powerpress]

Dr. Anthony Lilles is a Catholic husband and father of three teaching Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary. He  teaches spiritual theology and spiritual direction to transitional deacons, and the spiritual classics to the men who enter the Spirituality Year, a year of prayer in preparation for seminary formation.  He is the author of the “Beginning to Pray”  catholic blog spot.

From “Beginning to Pray”:

Elisabeth of the Trinity  understood her mission to be to help people enter into deep prayer. A carmelite nun, she saw self-occupation as a huge block to prayer and actually said that she would help lead souls out of themselves and into God. She was convinced that once we are free of our big fat ego – God is able to transform us in love. She called this transforming encounter with the Lord “the divine impact.”

With her love for the Scriptures, her devotion to the Trinity, her captivation with Christ’s salvific work – her writings are filled with helpful insights. Not everyone finds her easy to read – her flow of thought follows a musical composition rather than the rules of logic – and she is dense with quotations from the mystical tradition of the Catholic Church. Although she only lived to the age of 26, from the beginning of the Twentieth Century to today, many contemplatives have found her solid teaching helpful.

This the text we are using to discuss “Heaven in Faith” you can find it here and order from the Carmelite Sisters

 

We would like to offer heartfelt thanks to
Miriam Gutierrez for providing for us “the voice” of Blessed Elizabeth for this series

 

For other episodes in the series visit the Discerning Hearts page for Dr. Anthony Lilles