Closing Shop

Well, I want to formally close this old place as I withdraw from the world of blogging in order to prepare for my upcoming entrance into a monastic community. Visitors may still peek through the windows and walk the grounds, but I will not be receiving any messages after tomorrow afternoon. This abode has not only preserved my sanity during long hours of office boredom, but has incidentally inspired a few serious writing attempts, which improved me if no one else. For that reason, I shall remember it with some affection. But it is time to move on to, well, more exciting things. I look forward to finally living out my principles in deeds as well as words.

Some things will definitely be harder to leave behind. The grief of separation from family looms terribly before me in these last months. But whenever my feelings lead me to question the purpose of this stripping away, I remember again that Love is its cause and Love is its goal:

"What does He do to a soul which He has chosen from all eternity to be entirely His? In the great majority of cases 'He leads her into solitude to speak to her heart': Ducam eam in solitudinem et loquar ad cor ejus. Just as a vineyard is enclosed with a hedge to protect it, so the Spouse encloses that soul in the cloister 'in the clefts of the rocks': in foraminibus petrae; the mysterious sepulchre which becomes the cradle of life; He hides her 'in the secret of His face'; in abscondito faciei suae: He makes her dwell in silence, so that she may be recollected, may hear His voice more easily, may please Him alone. He gives the Rule which at each instant shows His will; for light, the Holy Scriptures, which recount His history and reveal His love; He gives the Church for Mother. He confides to her His praises so that 'her voice sounds sweet in His ears' Sonet vox tua in auribus meis, vox enim tua dulcis; He makes her live again the cycle of His mysteries, and by His sacraments gives her sovereign power. Such are the means by which the Spouse establishes safeguards, maintains and augments the love and fidelity of His elect."
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