Saint Theresa of Ávila

What makes a dialogue life determining?

Thoughts related to the fourth commandment

 

1. In how many ways do NOT we honor our parents? The rebellious phase often takes place between the 3rd and the 5th years of the formation of a young person. It is when he realizes for the first time that he himself exists on his own. At the tween age of 11-14 comes the second phase of emancipation when the detachment from parental behavioral patterns starts. At the end of adolescence we start to determine those parental behavioral patterns that we consider false and we do not want to follow. At the time of mid-life crisis the situation starts to turn over: the former parent becomes the child and the former child becomes the parent. Jesus emphasized love towards God and our neighbors (Matthew 22:37-39) instead of respect, as the big commandment.  Love, that is not a fake self-love, creates respect because it loves the other one for what he is and not for our expectations we would like him to be. Let’s love our parents (and we always have a new opportunity for that even if they are not with us any more!) and we will live long on Earth. (For further details, please read my essay here.)

 

2. Fruits of respect arising from love: how does a determining dialogue develop in our lives? Unconditional love makes us continuously open for the next moment when we can meet a new form of creation. This loving openness is actually not else, but respect. We all can remember one or more such dialogues that have been determining in our lives. Determining dialogues can be absurdly varied. Why is that so? Because in a determining dialogue there are not two but three parties present. The third one is the Holy Spirit, the all-seeing and all-arranging, huge love of our Lord Jesus and the Father. The Father lets us know our lives’ most important messages in the most incredible ways – because He knows well that a significant life-message has to be "presented" to a certain man in a certain moment just in that incredible way in order that he becomes able to receive it. (For further details, please read my essay here.)

 

3. How can we fulfill the fourth commandment? In a determining dialogue it is determining that we have not determined anything at all during the dialogue but God determines everything. That is if we would like to have determining dialogues in our lives, first we have to learn humility. If we are able to accept the purifying mercy of Jesus we may get closer to represent the Face of Jesus in the world less distorted. If all this has started to take shape in us, we begin to feel that we do not desire to have unnecessary words any more. We long only for the Word of God and for passing it to others. That is how ALL dialogues slowly become determining dialogues in us and around us. The dialogues that we have as parents and also the ones we have as children – with anyone. Because these two, parents and children are in their depth the very same: Jesus. In Jesus we got united with our own parents – and with our children, too. By the grace of our Lord that is how we can fulfil and complete God’s fourth commandment: Honor your father and your mother! (For further details, please read my essay here.)

 

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The power of prayer

Thoughts about the forms of our connection with God

 

 

 

1. Lives in which prayer does not “fit in”. Here I describe the monologue of two people. One of them is extremely poor, the other is extremely rich. The end of the two monologues are the same: I have my own problems. Leave me alone with worlds I do not even know anything about. This world has already overwhelmed me. (If you would like to read more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

 

2. Prayers to ourselves. A prayer for a lot of people is a... a.) monologue; b.) relief; c.) complaint; d.) solution; e.) obligation, role; f.) salvation. „Even a badly told prayer is much better than a prayer not told.” (Saint Teresa of Ávila) (If you would like to read more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

3. The thousand faces of the genuine prayer: The blissful paths leading us to God. A real prayer searches for the Giver, not the gift. The genuine prayer is Silence listening to the totality of God living within us. A real prayer is not about us. It asks for and awaits the love, truth and will of God to the center of our hearts. In a real prayer we make ourselves silent in order to let God fill us. A real prayer does not decrease but increases our freedom explosively. Only in full knowledge of our pitifulness and indignity we can accept the mercy that delivers us from our pitifulness and indignity. A real prayer has a thousand faces. A real prayer – is our lives themselves as a whole. A real prayer does not live in time. A real prayer opens the gate of Paradise again and places the re-creating hands of God into our lives. (If you would like to read more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

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What is the ultimate rebirth and how can we help others' rebirth?

Thoughts about conversion

1. Our self-made paths to rebirth. Psychology has diagnosed a number of life phases that can be characterized by fast transformations. They all offer occasions of rebirth. However, we should note that there is no inexhaustible energy behind these honorable efforts. So our rebirth (either self-made or helped by others) remains hopelessly bound to Earth. (If you would like to read more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

2. The touch of Totality as the start of ultimate rebirth. Thoughts about conversion. The Totality of rebirth requires the touch of God, the acceptance and experience of love of Jesus that transforms our whole lives. This is that inexhaustible energy that provides strength for everything. Conversion is the maximum satisfaction of the most comprehensive sense of mankind's loss and deprivation. Conversion is experiencing the infinity, permanency and faithful love of God. The essence of conversion is not a unique experience but a process of immersing in humility and emptying our own egos, in which man becomes the property of God. Many conversions remain only virtual. Gospels show beautiful examples what are the essential characteristics of conversion and how many different ways it may happen. The protagonist of conversion is God (and not the converted person). That is why conversion is not a matter of will. Conversion is by far not a "free ticket" to eternal life.  That is why the word "daily" in the daily conversion of Martin Luther becomes extremely important. There is no justification without conversion. At the same time conversion is not the "result", not the "end" of mercy providing justification, but the path itself going there. (If you would like to read more about this, please read my essay here.)

 

3. How can we help others' rebirth? The reborn man is charged with new and new energy continuously by his strengthening contact with God. He must pass this energy to other people. The preacher has to see people in the same way as God does: from inside. A man spreading the Gospel helps a love-bridge be built between Jesus and the other person. So he is never allowed to build a wall between himself and the other person but he shares the inexhaustible love of Totality with others. He does not speak "from inside" to outside but with enormous humility he recognizes as the image of Christ becomes visible in the other person, and he makes the other person to notice this in himself.

 

„watching it from the viewpoint of resurrection we may understand
that placing the body into the grave, it is not a cold depth of a hole for us any more,
but the image of Christ’s opened side,
a meeting of our fragile humanity with the endless love.
Because the grave has become the gate of Paradise since Christ was lying there.”

(Peregrin Kálmán OFM)

 

(If you would like to read more about this, read my essay here on Reformation Day, October 31st, All Saint's Day, November 1st and All Souls' Day, November 2nd.)

 

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