Remember that you have only one soul,
that you have only one death to die;
that you have only one life, which is short,
and has to be lived by you alone, and that there is only one glory,
which is eternal.
If you do this,
there will be many things
about which you care nothing.
~Teresa of Avila
“Purity of heart is to will one thing.”
~Søren Kierkegaard
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
~Jesus of Nazareth
People who are nearsighted know that squinting sharpens your focus. That is, partially closing your eyes obviously takes many things out of your field of vision, but the one thing you’re actually trying to see becomes clearer. I think this is why our spiritual journey involves so much stripping away of our attachments to things in our lives: God is putting us into a spiritual squint, causing many things to be obscured in order to bring the “one thing” Kierkegaard spoke of into focus. When this happens, and darkness falls on the extraneous clutter in our visual field – then, Jesus said, we will see God.
Susan Pitchford
Fioretti ("little flowers")
A "florilegium" is a collection, or bouquet, of writings. It comes from the Latin "flora" (flower)+ "legere" (to gather). It has the same meaning as the Greek word "anthology."
In the Middle Ages and beyond, when books were rare and expensive, people copied their favorite excerpts from books into a booklet they carried with them, a florilegium. In a similar vein, the "fioretti" or "little flowers" of Francis of Assisi are a series of stories about the saint that were gathered into a single volume. In this florilegium (nicer than "blog," isn't it?), I'd like to gather some of my favorite bits of writing by various authors, adding a little commentary but mostly letting the quotations speak for themselves. I hope it will grow into a garden that will be a pleasant place to linger for a bit. Enjoy! Archives
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Florilegium |
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