June 29, 2009
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what is holy desire? (from "The Cloud of Unknowing")
I thought this was a good follow-up to yesterday's post my holy ambition...
St. Gregory declares that "all holy desires heighten in intensity with the delay of fulfillment, and desire which fades with delay was never holy desire at all." For if you experience less and less joy when you discover anew the sudden presence of great desires you had formerly pursued your first desire was not holy desire. Possibly you felt a natural tendency toward the good but this should not be confused with holy desire. St. Augustine explains what I mean by holy desire when he says that "the entire life of a good Christian is nothing less than holy desire."
–"The Cloud of Unknowing" (chapter 74)
Related post: Kingdom-Obsessed people chase what matters
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Comments (4)
i have never read this before. i love it. i'm going to ponder on this one a lot today.
@YouTOme - I've read portions of the book but never the entire book. I came across this excerpt in another devotional book I use periodically, "A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants" (by Shawchuck & Job, Upper Room Publishers). I'd read this before and it had impacted me then, but as I read it again this morning it had an even greater impact.
@naphtali_deer - isn't that the case sometimes. we'll go back and read it a different time and something hits us differently. =)
@YouTOme - Right.