The soul of an individual

The soul of an individual is the longing inside each person for a greater sense of belonging, for a new country. We go through most workdays forgetting that this grand migratory force exists within us. We may feel a small satisfaction in a step taken, while the soul feels as if it is anchored off the promised land, wit just a short row to bring it home. At the level of our souls, no matter the difficulty in our work, or the responsibilities, or the possibility of failure, entire new worlds are coming into being.

In our soul's forgetting

In our soul's Magnificat, we become conscious of the cosmos with us. We hear the music of peace, we hear the music of cooperation, we hear the music of love. In our soul's forgetting, we become unconscious of our cosmic birthright, plighted with disharmony, disunity, torn asunder from the stars.

Establish my soul in peace

I hear the bells! It seems as though they are inviting me to rise higher than this earth into infinite spaces where there is nothing but Thou. I should like to be utterly silent . . . O my God, may I live entirely within, in the cell Thou are building in my heart. Establish my soul in peace; make it Thy cherished abode, the place of Thy rest. Let me never leave Thee there alone, but remain ever there absorbed in Thee in living faith and wholly yielded up Thy creative action!

Geologist of the soul

There are great treasures in the soul: there's faith and love, there's awe and wisdom. All these things you can dig — but if you don't know where to dig, you dig up mud. If you want to get to the gold — awe before God, and the silver — the love, and the diamonds — the faith, then you have to find the geologist of the soul who tells you where to dig. But the digging you have to do yourself.

To direct a soul

To direct a soul is to lead it in the ways of God, is to teach the soul to listen for Divine inspiration, and to respond to it; it is to suggest to the soul the practice of all the virtues proper for its particular state; it is not only to preserve that soul in purity and innocence, but to help it advance in wholeness: in a word, it is to contribute as much as possible in raising that soul to the degree of sanctity destined for it.

Affairs are now soul size

Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to meet us everywhere
Never to leave us till we take
The longest stride of soul humanity ever took —
Affairs are now soul size.
The enterprise
Is exploration into God.

Oh when a soul is hid in Thee

Oh, when a soul is hid in Thee
For what adventure can it yearn
Save love and still more love to learn,
And thus to love increasingly,
So deep does love within it burn?
My God, I pray Thee for a love
That years until I see Thy face.
And builds itself a nest above
Within its true abiding place.

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