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Quote by Elizabeth O'Connor OCSO

“The contemplative is on the journey to wholeness, autonomy, freedom - the freedom to love, to care, to transfigure the earth. Ultimately contemplation is related to our vocation - to what we are to do in the world. God gives us not only an incomplete self; God gives us an incomplete world. In contemplative prayer we participate in God's nature, we are in touch with our own divinity.”

Quote by Elizabeth O'Connor OCSO

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Elizabeth O'Connor OCSO

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“I doubt very much that there is any creativity in the world apart from contemplation. In contemplation we catch a vision of not only what is, but what can be. We find our place in salvation history. Contrary to what we have thought, contemplatives are the great doers. Contemplatives return from times of withdrawal with inner clarity and with direction. In their return from the silence, they take up the work of giving from to the liberating truths that have been given to them in flashes of insight and vision. They are also the great enablers of others. They evoke spirit in those they meet. Because they have been present to themselves, they are able to be present to others in a way that awakens, enlivens, gives courage. In them we see more clearly a way of existence that combines both being and doing.”

PrayerSpiritual Practices
Book:Search for Silence
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“It is a strange and frightening discovery to find that the sacrificial life that Jesus is talking about is the giving up of our chains - to discover that what binds us is also what gives us comfort and a measure of feeling safe. Change, while it has promise, will take from us something we have found sweet. The image we have of ourselves may keep us from wholeness, but it has some very satisfying compensations. ... Not only does change threaten something deep in us and call into being all kinds of resistance, it also threatens our friends. They, too, prefer the status quo. They may find us difficult to put up with at times, but something in them is also threatened at the prospect of the real change in us. They would be glad to have us give upa few irritating habits, provided we stay essentially as we are.”

PrayerSpiritual Practices
Book:Search for Silence
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“Celebrate yourself. Confess the person whom you are becoming in Christ. This is the confession of your light side. Many people find it easier to dig and probe the dark dimension of life than to come to grips with the resources that are theirs. When we do not recognize our gifts and strengths, our lives fail to sound notes of gratitude. the whole growth process is blocked. We are responsible and free only when we acknowledge our resources and the fact that light has actually penetrated our darkness and made us children of light. Where sin did abound, grace does much more abound. Our fundamental confession is who we are in Christ. the deepest confession anyone will ever make is this: I am a person in Christ Jesus. He has confronted me. His power has begun to flow into my life. I am a changed and changing creation. I am his, and I can witness to his grace and power, and to the strength and possibilities that are mine because of him.”

WholenessSpiritual Practices
Book:Search for Silence
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