Listening to the Wise Ones

Friday, Oct. 04, 2024
By Marie Mischel
Intermountain Catholic

I’m an inveterate collector of quotes. No matter if it’s inspirational, humorous, snarky or simply a wonderful turn of phrase, it makes no nevermind to me. If it strikes my fancy, I try to write it down.

It also doesn’t matter whether the person who said it is famous or not: “Life leads the thoughtful man on a path of many windings,” said Confucius; in my notes this is near a quote by Charles Bukowski: “Don’t fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice.”

Now, many people including me know that Confucius was an ancient Chinese scholar; I don’t know how many have heard of Bukowski. I hadn’t until just recently, but now I can tell you that he was a American poet and novelist who wrote in the 1970s and ’80s.  

If there is a connection among the sayings that are scribbled in my notebooks, typed in files on my phone, sometimes scratched on random bits of paper that are handy when I come across one, I can’t find it. As my reading now tends toward the spiritual, many of the quotes fall into that field, but even here they are diverse.

“I cannot dance, Lord, unless you lead me. If you want me to leap with abandon, you must intone the song. Then I shall leap into love.” These words from Mechthild of Magdeburg resonate with me because my personality tends toward the dour, and it probably would take an act of God to get me to leap with abandon.

When I first read that quote, I sat with it for a while, then picked up my journal and wrote (in embarrassingly flowery language), “The cacophony of everyday life leaches all joy; how can I hear the song? Come close, Lord, sing to me, sing that tune that calls to my soul, drawing me into love.”

I’ve also used quotes to help in my prayer life. For a while now I’ve been wanting to develop a more meaningful relationship to the Eucharist, so when I go to Communion I’ve been trying to keep this thought from Saint Claud la Colombière in mind: “Your usual intention at Communion should be that of Jesus Christ in coming to you, for it is the purest and most excellent possible: to unite yourself to the source and object of love, to strengthen yourself in the service of God and in the practice of virtue, to purify yourself by union with him who is purity itself.”

This fits in nicely with another quote I try to keep in mind, this from Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: “When I am preparing for Holy Communion, I picture my soul as a piece of land and I beg the Blessed Virgin to remove from it any rubbish that would present it from being free; then I ask her to set up a huge tent worthy of heaven, adorning it with her own jewelry; finally I invite all the angels and saints to come and conduct a magnificent concert there. It seems to me that when Jesus descends into my heart he is content to find himself so well received and I, too, am content.”

While I’m OK with praying to Our Lady for help in cleaning up my soul, I don’t know that I’d be so bold as to ask her to loan me her jewelry. On the other hand, Saint Alphonsus Ligouri suggests that we “acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends.” If we can approach the Almighty in such a manner, I suspect we can do the same with the Blessed Mother.

At the same time, though, I think that when we pray we need to pay heed to this caution from Saint Teresa of Avila: “If a person neither considers to whom he is addressing himself, what he asks, nor what he is who ventures to speak to God, although his lips may utter many words, I do not call it prayer.”

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic. Reach her at marie@icatholic.org. 

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