Daily Primer — June 11, Dubrovnik — Croatia

The inner self is as secret as God and, like Him, it evades every concept that tries to seize hold of it with full possession.  It is a life that cannot be held and studied as object, because it is not “a thing.”  It is not reached and coaxed forth from hiding by any process under the sun, including meditation.  All that we can do with any spiritual discipline is produce within ourselves something of the silence, the humility, the detachment, the purity of heart, and the indifference which are required if the inner self is to make some shy, unpredictable manifestation of his presence.
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DESPAIR is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a man deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost.
In every man there is hidden some root of despair because in every man there is pride that vegetates and springs weeds and rank flowers of self-pity as soon as our own resources fail us. But because our own resources inevitably fail us, we are all more or less subject to discouragement and to despair.
Despair is the ultimate development of a pride so great and so stiff-necked that it selects the absolute misery of damnation rather than accept happiness from the hands of God and thereby acknowledge that He is above us and that we are not capable of fulfilling our destiny by ourselves.
But a man who is truly humble cannot despair, because in the humble man there is no longer any such thing as self-pity.
IT is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.
At this point of the spiritual life humility meets the highest exaltation of greatness. It is here that every one who humbles himself is exalted because, living no longer for himself or on the human level, the spirit is delivered of all the limitations and vicissitudes of creaturehood and of contingency, and swims in the attributes of God, Whose power, magnificence, greatness and eternity have, through love, through humility, become our own.
If we were incapable of humility we would be incapable of joy, because humility alone can destroy the self-centeredness that makes joy impossible.

Florilegium is the Medieval Latin word for bouquet, or more literally flowers (flos, flor-) which are gathered (legere). The word florilegium was used to refer to a compilation of writings, often religious or philosophical. These florilegium are literary flowers—beautiful words/prayers/thoughts I have gathered.  During my sabbatical they will give me something to ponder each day. — PHL.

Lord, you say to us, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  In you we “live and move and have our being,” and the path to the place of our resurrection is found in your way, truth, and life.  Help us who follow and who search for life to find the life which really is life.  All this we ask that we might be bearers of your grace to a hurting world.  In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

God of rest, you make your creatures not only for labor but for rest. You sent your prophet to remind me, “In returning and in rest is your salvation,” and again in the question of the Psalmist, “Why do you rise up early and go late to your rest, eating the bread of anxious toil — when the Lord gives sleep to his beloved?” Grant me a night of restful slumber. As I slip beneath the surface of consciousness, immerse me again in your creative love and renew me — that I might rise again in you and live the life that really is life to the glory of God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Final Blessing
Go to your rest in the certain knowledge that “God pours gifts on the beloved while they slumber.”  May I be a faithful servant departing in peace and may the only thing which disturbs my slumber be the work of God’s Spirit calling me to a transformed life in Christ.   May the all-powerful Lord grant me a restful night and a peaceful death.  Amen.