When the time comes to enter the darkness in which we are naked and helpless and alone; in which we see the insufficiency of our greatest strength and the hollowness of our strongest virtues; in which we have nothing of our own to rely on, and nothing in our nature to support us, and nothing in the world to guide us or give us light - then we find out whether or not we live by faith.
Merton

From a sermon by St. Bernard, abbot (this was on the forum today. Bernard at his very best. )
I love because I love, I love that I may love
Love is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is a great thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing from there the water which constantly replenishes it. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.
The Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in return nothing but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that Love not be loved?

I slept through most of my prayer but the psalms are more urgent this week.
on monday you said them.
I stood beside you.
I put my hand in yours.

starting over, a month later.
not because I want to, but because I must.
whether I am with you or not you are still: truth;
this I know.
I travel on with nothing to go on - or so it seems.
this is illusion.
If I travel, I have something to go on . . . . .
the only way.

the silence is telling, son of ephraim.

a quote by Fr Denis Lemieux

We tend to think of our lives as somehow being just about us, don't we? Even if we're essentially trying to be good people? You know: I am me and you are you and she is she and God is God and...we're all in little hermetically sealed compartments. We may bump up against each other, but ultimately we're all locked into our own selves. This kind of atomic individualism is deeply ingrained in us.

And God is God, and the world is the world: so much of modernity is founded on a conviction that the two are not just distinct, but strictly separated one from the other.

But 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us'
(John 1: 14). . . . . . . . . . 

The rest is less convincing, but this introduction seemed clear and true, (oversimplified? perhaps but this helps make the point I think.)

I have just googled Fr Denis.
American.
His blog begins with a massive photo of the pope which rather put me off delving deeper but maybe later I will have a closer look. (The quote came through the group.)