Armchair Mystic Quotes

“The Bible warns time and again against the fallacy that holds that I can be close to God without being close to God’s people. It condemns any sort of God-and-me spirituality that does not result in an outpouring of love toward others: (Is. 58:5-7).”
― Mark E. Thibodeaux, Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer

“Not only do I need friends who share in my desires and convictions, and not only do I need mentors who can support, encourage and advise me as I journey to God, but I also need a community with whom I can participate in the proclamation of the Word and the celebration of all that the Words means to me. Like the baby Jesus, I need a "holy family" to belong to. I need to belong to something bigger than myself. If I don't, then I run the risk of developing a sort of God-and-me spirituality with no support systems to hold me up when I am weak, no prophets to challenge me when I am wrong and no party-mates with whom I may celebrate the Lord's goodness in my life.”
― Mark E. Thibodeaux, Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer

“The graces of a healthy prayer life will reverberate in the actions of my everyday life. I throw a stone into a quiet pond. The stone is small and the spot it touches on the surface of the water is, too. And yet its ripples expand to every corner of the lake. From that tiny spot where the rock first made contact, waves are born and are carried to the very edges. In the same way, the effects of my short period of intimate contact with God will ripple through to the very edges of my day. Many people do not understand this basic connection between their prayer lives and their everyday lives.”
― Mark Thibodeaux S.J., Armchair Mystic: Easing into Contemplative Prayer

“Each Christian needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy…then we need an hour. —Saint Francis de Sales”
― Mark Thibodeaux S.J., Armchair Mystic: Easing into Contemplative Prayer

“Prayer is for listening; review of prayer is for discerning. It is important that I resist the temptation to analyze what is going on. During prayer, I will be tempted to play the sports commentator, reviewing every move with instant replay. I will be tempted to ask myself if the prayer is going well, if it is really God speaking or merely my imagination, if I'm handling this conversation well and so on. This ongoing analysis will only distract me from listening for God with my full attention....I may miss God's voice because I am too preoccupied with evaluating the prayer then and there. During the prayer itself, I must simply be present and listen attentively to whatever is said by whomever. There will be plenty of time to sort it all out later.”
― Mark E. Thibodeaux, Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer

“As I grow in my prayer life, my soul becomes a delightfully cluttered attic, filled with random graces that do not all fit together in some perfectly ordered system. The purpose of some graces will be immediately apparent in my life, but the meaning of others might evade me for a while. I must resist the temptation to clean up the messiness of my graces and must not try to come up with immediate answers for the questions that arise from them.”
― Mark E. Thibodeaux, Armchair Mystic: Easing Into Contemplative Prayer

“The human condition is such that I spend my life struggling to be my own master and lord. I cling to the illusion that I am the god of my own life, and I go to any lengths to keep that illusion alive. Deep down inside, I know that my own kingship is inadequate, but I cannot accept that. I spend my life trying to prove to others and to myself that I am worthy to be lord. I am obsessed with doing, proving, having, showing, moving, winning, owning and on and on. These actions are my desperate attempts to prove to myself that I am the creator (my products) and the ruler (my control), and am adore-able (my achievements). Because it is a lie, because I am not any of those things, the proof will never be enough. I must constantly engage in more action, make more products, achieve more goals.”
― Mark Thibodeaux S.J., Armchair Mystic: Easing into Contemplative Prayer