Week of prayer for Christian unity

PoPope Francis: 'Our witness must concentrate on
the centre of our faith.' 

Pope Francis has said the evangelisation of secular society requires focusing on the essentials of Christianity in collaboration with other Christian churches. 

The Pope made his remarks at a meeting with representatives of the Lutheran Church in Finland, who were making their annual ecumenical pilgrimage to Rome on the feast of Finland’s patron, St Henry. The meeting occurred one day before the start of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Pope Francis told the group that ecumenical relations lately have been undergoing “significant changes, owing above all to the fact that we find ourselves professing our faith in the context of societies and cultures every day more lacking in reference to God and all that recalls the transcendent dimension of life”.

“For this very reason, our witness must concentrate on the centre of our faith, on the announcement of the love of God made manifest in Christ his son,” the Pope said. “Here we find space to grow in communion and in unity, promoting spiritual ecumenism.”

Pope Francis quoted the Second Vatican Council’s decree on ecumenism, which described “spiritual ecumenism” as consisting of “conversion of heart and holiness of life, together with private and public prayer for Christian unity,” which form the “soul of the whole ecumenical movement”.

from The Catholic Herald, 17 January 2014

Saturday, 18 January 2014

Saturday of the First week in Ordinary Time

Feast of the Church : Week of prayer for Christian unity

See commentary below or click here
Vatican Council II: "As he passed by, he saw Levi... He said to him, 'Follow me.' " 

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 2:13-17.

Jesus went out along the sea. All the crowd came to him and he taught them.
As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. He said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. ... 

Commentary of the day :

Vatican Council II
Dogmatic Constitution on revelation « Dei Verbum », § 1-2

"As he passed by, he saw Levi... He said to him, 'Follow me.' "

Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the sacred synod takes its direction from these words of Saint John: "We announce to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you may have fellowship with us and our common fellowship be with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ" (1 Jn 1:2-3)...

In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (Eph 1,9) by which, through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (Eph 2,18; 2 Pt 1,4). Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (Col 1,15; 1 Tm. 1,17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (Ex 33,11; Jn 15,14-15) and lives among them (Bar 3,38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself.

This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this revelation then, the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation.

Speech and Language Therapy. The Agony in the Garden

Note:
Latterly he was a pioneering for people with communication difficulties lecturing to speech and language therapists. 

 Clifford Hughes, Church service to celebrate his life, 18 Jan 2014.

El Greco

 Rosary Meditations for Mentally Ill People

Frances Truscott

CTS Publications

The Sorrowful Mysteries

1. The Agony in the Garden. Lk 22.39-46

Jesus is aware of what is going to happen to him and he prays fervently in the Garden of Gethsemane. He is in great need, very mentally distressed, although he is not ilL He seeks solitude in order to pray with greater concentration, but he is in such distress that his sweat becomes like drops of blood. He is frightened of what is going to happen to him, and prays that the suffering he envisages will not be necessary.

Often we are frightened when we are mentally ill or distressed. Jesus experiences his companions letting him down by falling asleep. Often we will feel totally alone. At this time Jesus felt great mental suffering, so he has been there and knows how we feel. However, he sees clearly through his pain to his mission to fulfill God's plan. In imitation of him, we should try to do God's will in our own lives.

Tissot-the-grotto-of-the-agony Hidden meanings   in the Garden paintings

St. Antony Mass Memorial

Friday 17 January 2014

SAINT ANTONY
Patriarch of Monks
(251-356)

        St. Antony was born in the year 251, in Upper Egypt. Hearing at Mass the words, "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor," he gave away all his vast possessions. He then begged an aged hermit to teach him the spiritual life. He also visited various solitaries, copying in himself the principal virtue of each.

        To serve God more perfectly, Antony entered the desert and immured himself in a ruin, building up the door so that none could enter. Here the devils assaulted him most furiously, appearing as various monsters, and even wounding him severely; but his courage never failed, and he overcame them all by confidence in God and by the sign of the cross.

        One night, whilst Antony was in his solitude, many devils scourged him so terribly that he lay as if dead. A friend found him thus, and believing him dead carried him home. But when Antony came to himself he persuaded his friend to carry him, in spite of his wounds, back to his solitude. Here, prostrate from weakness, he defied the devils, saying, "I fear you not; you cannot separate me from the love of Christ." After more vain assaults the devils fled, and Christ appeared to Antony in glory.

        His only food was bread and water, which he never tasted before sunset, and sometimes only once in two, three, or four days. He wore sackcloth and sheepskin, and he often knelt in prayer from sunset to sunrise.

        Many souls flocked to him for advice, and after twenty years of solitude he consented to guide them in holiness-thus founding the first monastery. His numerous miracles attracted such multitudes that he fled again into solitude, where he lived by manual labor.

        He expired peacefully at a very advanced age. St. Athanasius, his biographer, says that the mere knowledge of how St. Antony lived is a good guide to virtue.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

Jesus cures leper Mk. 1:40-45

1st Thursday Jesus cures leper

Mk. 1:40-45

On Thursday, 16 January 2014, 16:52, Nivard ... wrote:  

   The leper in today’s Gospel approached Jesus confidently and humbly. He believed that Jesus could and would heal him.

   Normally a leper would be stoned if he came near a rabbi. Jesus not only grants the man his request, but he demonstrates the personal love, compassion, and tenderness of God.

   Jesus met the man's misery with compassion and tender kindness.

   He showed the love and mercy of God. This sign is more eloquent than words.

   Jesus touched the man and made him clean – not only physically but also spiritually.

 

 Father, inflame our hearts with your love and make us clean and whole in body, mind, and spirit, through Christ our Lord.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1. World Leprosy Day 2014‎

   www.lepra.org.uk/world-leprosy-day‎
   Sunday 26th January 2014
   Learn more about leprosy

World Leprosy Day

Making a difference for neglected people in 2014!

St. Ambrose. Christ's love for his Church Ps. 39.

Patristic Reading.

SAINT AMBROSE OF MILAN

Born ca. 339
Died April 4, 397

“The Pastoral Doctor”

Note; Word in Season VII, 1999 Augustine Press.
Of the three alternative Readings, St. Ambrose is selected.

2nd reading, Thursday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time Year II

First Reading:    BOOK OF GENESIS

(The consequences of sin: Genesis 4:1-24)

Second Reading: 

A COMMENTARY ON PSALM 39 BY ST AMBROSE

Christ's love for his Church.

At the beginning of the book Scripture speaks of me. In the opening chapters of Genesis it was foretold that Christ would come to fulfil his Father’s will for the redemption of mankind. This was when the sacred writer described how in creating Eve to be man’s helpmate God made her a type of the Church. Where indeed can we find help for our bodily weakness and protection against the upheavals of the world around us, except in the grace of salvation which comes to us through the Church and the faith by which we live?      
In the first pages of the Bible we read: Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh! Because of this a man will leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they will be two in one flesh. If you wish to know the real speaker of these words, listen to the following: this is a great mystery; I tell you it refers to Christ and the Church. The meaning is that the love that should exist between man and wife can be compared with Christ's love for his Church. We are members of Christ's body, sharers of his flesh and bone. What greater well-being can we have than to be so close to Christ, to cleave to him in a kind of bodily oneness, in a union with that body of his which is without blemish or stain of sin?
We are told in the early pages of the same book that righteous Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God while his murderous brother’s was rejected. This, surely, is a clear sign that the Lord Jesus was to offer himself up for us, and that in and through his passion he would hallow a new sacrifice to supersede a rite proper to a parricidal people. It is even more clearly expressed in the holy Patriarch Abraham’s offering of his son Isaac, in whose stead a ram was ultimately immolated. And this showed that it was man’s flesh, the flesh he has in common with the animals and not the divinity of the only Son of God, that was destined to endure the rigours of the passion.
At the beginning of the book it is written that in due time there would come a man who held command over the powers of heaven. This prophecy was fulfilled when the Lord Jesus arrived on earth and angels ministered to him, according to his own prediction: You will see the heavens opened and God's angels ascending and descend­ing around the Son of Man.
Again at the beginning of the book it is said that you must choose out for yourselves a full-grown yearling lamb, a male without blemish, which the whole assembly shall then ceremonially slay. The identity of that lamb you know already: Behold the Lamb of God who is to bear away the sin of all the world! He is the one that was slain by the entire Jewish people. It was indeed necessary that he should die for all men, so that through his cross every sin might find forgiveness and in his blood the stains of all the world be washed away.

St Ambrose, In Ps. 39, 11-14 (PL14:1061-1062); Word in Season VII.

Saint Augustine, the Doctor of Grace - a Reading on Rebuke and Grace

Patristic Lectionary

Saint Augustine of Hippo – The Doctor of Grace  http://tomperna.org/2013/08/28/saint-augustine-of-hippo-the-doctor-of-grace/

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI 

In his Wednesday Audience from January 9, 2008, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said,

“This man of passion and faith, of the highest intelligence and tireless in his pastoral care, a great saint and Doctor of the Church, is often known, at least by hearsay, eve by those who ignore Christianity or who are not familiar with it, because he left a very deep mark on the cultural life of the West and on the whole world. Because of his special importance, Saint Augustine’s influence was widespread.”

2014/01/09

2nd reading, Wednesday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time Year II

A READING FROM ON REBUKE AND GRACE BY ST AUGUSTINE

  The Lord of all things created all things very good, he foreknew that evils would arise from good, and he knew that it pertains to his omnipotent goodness to make good use of evils rather than not to allow evils to exist. He made man with free choice and, though ignorant of his future fall, man was still happy because he knew that it was in his power both not to die and not to become miserable. If through free choice he had willed to remain in this upright state without defect, he would, without any experience of death and unhappiness, certainly have received that fullness of beatitude enjoyed by the holy angels. But because Adam abandoned God through free choice, he experienced the just judgement of God to the point that he was condemned along with all his offspring which in its entirety had sinned in him and along with him. 

What then? Did Adam not have the grace of God? On the contrary, he had a great grace, but a different grace from ours. He existed amid goods which he had received from the goodness of his Creator, but in this life the Saints who have the grace of deliverance exist amid the evils from which they cry out to God, Deliver us from evil. In those goods Adam did not need the death of Christ, whereas the blood of that Lamb washes these Saints from inherited and personal sin. For in them the flesh has desires opposed to the spirit and the spirit has desires opposed to the flesh, and in this struggle they ask that the grace of Christ give them the power to fight and to conquer. What grace is more powerful than the only-begotten Son of God, equal to and coeternal with the Father, who became man for them and, without any sin of his own, either original or personal, was crucified by human sinners? God, therefore, assumed our nature, that is, the rational soul and the flesh of Christ the man, and he assumed it in a singularly marvellous manner. For, without any preceding merits of his own righteousness, Christ was the Son of God from the first moment he began to be a man in such a way that he and the Word, which is without beginning, was one person. Good works followed his birth; good works did not merit it. For there was no reason to fear that the human nature assumed in this ineffable way into the unity of the person by God the Word would sin by free choice of the will. 

The first man did not have this grace with which he would never have willed to be evil, but even in his free choice God did not leave Adam without grace. For free choice is sufficient for evil, but not sufficient for good, unless it is helped by the Omnipotent Good. But that man abandoned this help through free choice, he abandoned it and was in turn abandoned. This is the first grace which was given to the first Adam, but there is a more powerful grace than this in the second Adam. For the first grace brought it about that the man had righteousness if he willed to; but the second even makes one to will, and to will so strongly and to love with such ardour that by the will of the Spirit one conquers the contrary desires of the flesh.
St Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace, 27-31; WSA (1999) tr. Teske.

WEDNESDAY, 1ST WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME, YEAR II

A READING FROM THE BOOK OF GENESIS
(The sin of Adam: Genesis 3:1-24)

Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”  ... 

COMMENT:Christ the Firstborn from the Dead

Office of the Dead - January 2014

He speaks of His "hour", of "this hour for which I came,” and which is none other than "the hour for him to pass out of this world to the Father.” Throughout His whole life on earth He is looking forward to that Easter when He will finally attain the fullness of His humanity. If sin had not been present in the world His death would have been a glorious transformation.

Patristic Readings Hilary. 'Christ, ... is able, to transform our humble bodies into the likeness of his own glorious body'.' Troisfontaines, ‘theology’; that single aspect, His last breath before dying: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit" (Lk 23" 46)”.

St. Kentigern

Ordinary Time: January 13th

Optional Memorial of St. Hilary of Poitiers, bishop and doctor; Memorial of St. Kentigern, bishop (Scotland)

Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time Year 2 

A READING FROM THE WRITINGS OF ST HILARY OF POITIERS

St. Hilary

  

In Adam’s sleep and the creation of Eve we should see a revelation of the mystery hidden in Christ and the Church, since it contains an analogy pointing to faith in the resurrection of the body. For in the creation of woman dust is not taken from the ground as before; a body is not formed from earth; inanimate matter is not transformed by the breath of God into a living soul. Instead flesh grows upon bone, a complete body is given to the flesh, and the power of the spirit is added to the complete body. That this is the way the resurrection will take place God pro­claimed through the Prophet Ezekiel to teach us what his power would accomplish in time to come. Then everything will happen at once: the body will be there, the spirit will fly towards it, and none of his works will be lost to God.  

Now this, according to the Apostle, is the mystery hidden for long ages in God, namely, that the Gentiles are joint heirs with the Jews, part of the same body, having a share in his promise in Christ, who is able, as the same Apostle says, to transform our humble bodies into the likeness of his own glorious body. Therefore when the heavenly Adam rose again after the sleep of his passion, he recog­nised the Church as his bone, its flesh not now created from dust or given life by breath, but growing upon bone it became a body made from a body and was perfected by the coming of the Spirit.

For those who are in Christ will rise again like Christ, in whom the resurrection of all flesh has already taken place, since he himself was born in our flesh with the power of God by which the Father begot him before the world began. And since Jew and Greek, barbarian and Scythian, the slave and the free, men and women, are all one in Christ, since flesh is recognized as proceeding from flesh, and the Church is the body of Christ, and the mystery which is in Adam and Eve is a prophecy concerning Christ and the Church, all that has been prepared by Christ and the Church for the end of time was already accomplished in Adam and Eve at the beginning of time.

St Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus Mysteriorum, (SC19bis:83-85); Word in Season VII.

Early morning sun, 11 January, Sky in the East

1. 2nd reading, Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time Year 2

   mike-demers.blogspot.com/.../2nd-reading-tuesday-of-first-week-in.html‎
   

   
   

   4 days ago - 2nd reading, Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time Year 2. A READING FROM THE WRITINGS OF ST HILARY OF POITIERS In Adam's  ...  
2. 
   
   COMMENT:
   The theology of this Reading of St. Hilary, Jan. 13^th, stopped me and felt dense with wooden plank.
   It was a relief the next day with the Reading in the Office of the Dead. Fr. Roger Troisfontaines’ search-light concentrated the ‘theology’; that single aspect, His last breath before dying: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit" (Lk 23" 46)”.
   Below, in the columns there is much thought to be stretched to the contrast’
   
   
   
   

   Ordinary Time: January 13th Optional Memorial of St Hilary of Poitiers, bishop and doctor

   Monthly Memorial – Office of the Dead 14/01.2014

   Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time Year 2  A READING FROM THE WRITINGS OF ST HILARY OF POITIERS Christ,  is able,  to transform our humble bodies into the likeness of his own glorious body In Adam’s sleep and the creation of Eve we should see a revelation of the mystery hidden in Christ and the Church, since it contains an analogy pointing to faith in the resurrection of the body. For in the creation of woman dust is not taken from the ground as before; a body is not formed from earth; inanimate matter is not transformed by the breath of God into a living soul. Instead flesh grows upon bone, a complete body is given to the flesh, and the power of the spirit is added to the complete body. That this is the way the resurrection will take place God proclaimed through the Prophet Ezekiel to teach us what his power would accomplish in time to come Then everything will happen at once: the body will be there, the spirit will fly towards it, and none of his works will be lost to God. Now this, according to the Apostle, is the mystery hidden for long ages in God, namely, that the Gentiles are joint heirs with the Jews, part of the same body, having a share in his promise in Christ, who is able, as the same Apostle says, to transform our humble bodies into the likeness of his own glorious body. Therefore when the heavenly Adam rose again after the sleep of his passion, he recognised the Church as his bone, its flesh not now created from dust or given life by breath, but growing upon bone it became a body made from a body and was perfected by the coming of the Spirit. For those who are in Christ will rise again like Christ, in whom the resurrection of all flesh has already taken place, since he himself was born in our flesh with the power of God by which the Father begot him before the world began. And since Jew and Greek, barbarian and Scythian, the slave and the free, men and women, are all one in Christ, since flesh is recognized as proceeding from flesh, and the Church is the body of Christ, and the mystery which is in Adam and Eve is a prophecy concerning Christ and the Church, all that has been prepared by Christ and the Church for the end of time was already accomplished in Adam and Eve at the beginning of time. St Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus Mysteriorum, (SC19bis:83-85); Word in Season VII.

   A  Reading about Jesus Christ the Firstborn from the Dead, from a Book by Fr. Roger Troisfontaines * THE death and Resurrection of Christ are the foundation of our hope in immortality, but the theological importance of the mystery of Easter far exceeds that single aspect. Is it not true that the whole of Revelation is resplendent with the light of Jesus, crucified and risen, whom St. Paul calls the summary of all his knowledge? Is He not the glorified Deceased in whom we find an intimation of what the Charity of God must be, and our response to it? "Lt is In Jesus Christ only," says Pascal, "that we may know what our life, our death, and our God is, and what we ourselves are." God had intended death to be the way of reaching our final state in full consciousness and freedom, and with the wealth of our experiences. Unfortunately, our sin has stamped upon this death the stigmata of suffering and horror. These marks are indelible: we see them even in the suffering of the God-Man. But His death changed their meaning; new man may remain united with God even unto the very instant of his departure from life. To use the ancient Christian phrase, it is now possible for him to "die in the Lord." Human life is essentially an apprenticeship to death. Since Jesus Christ is true man, He consummates His destiny only in His last act: His passing to the Hereafter. He has always been truly aware of this. From the very start of His public life He speaks of His "hour", of "this hour for which I came,” and which is none other than "the hour for him to pass out of this world to the Father.” Throughout His whole life on earth He is looking forward to that Easter when He will finally attain the fullness of His humanity. If sin had not been present in the world His death would have been a glorious transformation. In any event, only in His passing from this earth to heavenly life does Jesus fulfil His essential mission: He, the "Pontifex" or "Bridgebuilder ," bridges over the abyss between human and divine nature. Above all else, therefore, this all-important act of dying is the one in which we must resemble Him and be united with Him. He showed us a way of life to teach us the right way of dying: without sin, at peace with God. As a model for all men to follow, He wished to express this attitude very clearly, even with His last breath before dying: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit" (Lk 23" 46). Being the perfect Yes "He became obedient unto death" (Phil. 2" 8) . * I Do Not Die, New York - Tournai - Paris - Rome 1963, 245-246, 253-255.

   
   
   
   
   
   

Patristic Readings, "this Spirit is blended with the soul and united to the shaped clay, the result, thanks to the outpouring of the Spirit, is a spiritual and complete man." Iraenaeus

Saint Irenaeus.

Seeing the daunting, Adversus Haereses.

A prayer in the deep theology waves, with thanks from Cardinal Mercier;

Cardinal Mercier's Prayer to the Holy Spirit - Christian Forums

www.christianforums.com › ... › The Chapel - Catholic‎

 Cardinal Mercier's Prayer to the Holy Spirit

O Holy Spirit, Soul of my soul, I adore You.
Enlighten, guide, strengthen and console me.
Tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it.
I promise to be submissive in everything that You permit to happen to me,
Only show me what is Your will. Amen

     +++++++++++++  

2nd reading, Monday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time Year II

A READING FROM AGAINST HERESIES BY ST IRENAEUS

The heretics do not accept the Incarnation and so they remain in Adam who was conquered and cast out of Paradise. They fail to see that, just as when we were formed in Adam the breath of life was added to make a rational animal, so, at the end, the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God were united to the same ancient substance of Adam. This made man truly alive and perfect, capable of knowing the perfect Father. It was done so that, as in the ‘animal man’ we all die, so in the ‘spiritual man’ we might all be made alive. Adam at no time escaped the hands of God, the Son and the Spirit, to whom the Father said, Let us make man in our image and likeness. That is why, at the end, not by the will of the flesh or the will of a man, but by the good pleasure of the Father, these hands of God made the living Man, so that Adam might come at last into the image and likeness of God.

 

 

The soul and the spirit may be part of man, but they are certainly not the complete man. The complete man is a mixture and a union: the soul, which has received the Spirit of the Father, mixed with the flesh fashioned in the image of God. If you take away the substance of the flesh, the shaped clay, and consider just the naked spirit, what you are left with is not ‘the spiritual man’, but merely ‘the spirit of a man’ or ‘the Spirit of God’. However, when this Spirit is blended with the soul and united to the shaped clay, the result, thanks to the outpouring of the Spirit, is a spiritual and complete man. It is this, the complete man, who is made in the image and likeness of God. Thus the Apostle, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, explains that the redeemed man is this complete and spiritual man: May the God of peace sanctify you completely, and may your whole being, spirit and soul and body, be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The truth of all this was shown when the Word of God became man. He assimilated himself to man and man to himself, so that man, by his resemblance to the Son, might become precious to the Father. For in times past it was merely said that man was made in the image of God, but not shown, because the Word, in whose image man was made, was still invisible. That is why man lost the likeness so easily. But when the Word of God was made flesh, he confirmed both things: he showed the true image, when he himself became what his image was; and he restored the likeness, making man like the invisible Father through the visible Word.

St Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 5.1.3, 6.1, 16.2; tr. Pluscarden.
Posted by Michael Demers at 14:15 

     +++++++++++++  

St Aelred of Rievaulx, 12 January, 2nd Patron of Sancta Maria Abbey, Nunraw

Solemnity. Community Sermon.

Archive: aptly named, Visual Theology.  

St Aelred of Rievaulx: celebrating 900 years
http://visualtheology.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/st-aelred-of-rievaulx-celebrating-900.html

The 19th May was the 900th anniversary of the birth of St Aelred of Rievaulx. Today the Cistercian monastery of Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire of which he was abbot lies in ruins. Back in the twelfth century it was part of the vibrant expansion of ‘freshly expressed’ monasticism across western Europe.  Aelred’s ministry as abbot may only have lasted for twenty years but his wisdom and spiritual insight have enriched the practice of Christianity for the succeeding eight centuries.

His writings on Spiritual Friendship provide a timeless lens through which we see our deepest human needs for secure and safe intimacy put into a wholly Christian perspective. Perhaps it is for the following extract from his ‘Mirror of Charity’ that Aelred is most fondly remembered:

It is no mean consolation in this life to have someone with whom you can be united by an intimate attachment and the embrace of very holy love, to have someone in whom your spirit may rest, to whom you can pour out your soul; to whose gracious conversation you may flee for refuge amid sadness, as to consoling songs; or to the most generous bosom of whose friendship you may approach in safety amid the many troubles of this world; to whose most loving breast you may without hesitation confide all your inmost thoughts, as to yourself....someone you can let into the secret chamber of your mind by bonds of love

(St. Aelred of Rievaulx, from Mirror of Charity)