Closer than Breath,
Waiting to be Received
Closer than Breath,
Waiting to be Received
Disclaimer: The contents of this website represent the personal reflections of Linda Saxton and are offered in a spirit of prayer and discernment. Intended to be authentically Catholic, these reflections do not necessarily express the official teachings or positions of the Catholic Church nor the Discalced Carmelite Order.
ENCOUNTER - CONSENT - COMMUNE - ABIDE
Alone, Together, and In Community
Pray, meditate, surrender, and love is how we abide with God in the interior life of Grace.
Stay awhile and learn how.
An Interior Life of Grace
Abiding in the Presence of God
GOD - THE FATHER OF ALL CREATION
MAKES US ALL THAT WE ARE AND ALL THAT WE CAN BE THROUGH HIS GRACE
Of all His creatures, only we humans separate ourselves from God with our thoughts, words, emotions, and actions. That's because we are the only living creatures who can exercise Free Will to make choices to either turn away from Him or to bring ourselves into communion and loving relationship with God.
GOD LOVES US
"What we think of as our search for God is, in reality, a response to the Divine Lover drawing us to himself. There is never a moment when Divine Love is not at work. . . . This work is nothing other than a giving of the divine Self in love. The logical consequence for us must surely be that our part is to let ourselves be loved, let ourselves be given to, let ourselves be worked upon by this great God and made capable of total union with Him".
From the book "Essence of Prayer" by RUTH BURROWS
A Contemporary Carmelite Nun
God seeks our openness to and receptivity of His Love as much as we desire to be loved and in relationship with Him. His merciful and unceasing Love is His gift to us, freely given as unmerited favor or GRACE.
God does not love us because we are good and that we 'deserve' it. He loves us as we are because that is His nature and He wants us to be free to love ourselves and each other. He created us in His image and came to experience us as Jesus Christ, who was fully human and fully divine. In His humanity, Jesus modeled a life of humility, compassion, love, joy, spiritual warriorship, and peace. He taught us to be forgiving and merciful, and sacrificed Himself to the will of the Father so that we might live as a Divine Humanity on earth, clearing the way to eternal life before the Glory of God in Heaven.
God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Romans 5:5
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
John 4: 7-8
"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us".
St. Augustine
We gain an understanding of God and His plan for us through the Scriptures. We are sanctified by the Holy Spirit when we receive the Sacraments. We learn how to live holy lives through the teachings of Jesus and by living in community. Through reconciliation and prayer we develop a personal relationship with God as we ask for forgiveness and forgive and commune with Him so that we might get to know God with our hearts and souls. We seek His guidance and within the silence of our contemplative Hearts, we listen for His response, surrender to His Will, and receive His Grace
"The more we surrender to God, the more luminous, beautiful, and human we become".
Bishop Robert Barron
God embodied Himself as Jesus, who was fully divine and fully human, so that we might witness, interact with, and learn from Him as one of us. Jesus modeled how God had intended us to be prior to our fall from Grace, that is
TO BE LOVE ITSELF
It is through Him, and only through Him, that our humanity is healed, elevated, and drawn into intimate communion with the divine life of the TRINITY: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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Christ is the bridge—the incarnate Son in whom God and humanity are forever united.
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His Living Presence is not abstract or symbolic; it is real, active, and sacramental—especially in the Eucharist, where He offers Himself to us as true food and true drink, that we might live in Him and He in us (cf. John 6:56).
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He is human and divine—not a man who became God, but God who became man, making the human capable of bearing divine life through GRACE.
To allow Him to transform us into HOLINESS is to SURRENDER to the process of SANCTIFICATION:
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It is to become what we receive in the Eucharist: the Body of Christ.
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It is to participate in His love, obedience, suffering, and glory.
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It is to be conformed not just morally, but mystically—to become vessels of DIVINE LOVE, dwelling in communion with the Triune God.
This is not a loss of our humanity, but its fulfillment—what the Church Fathers called theosis or divinization. We are not absorbed into God, but made fully ALIVE in Him, becoming more truly ourselves.
Thus, Divine Humanity is not a status we claim, but a mystery we enter. It is the fruit of COMMUNION, HUMILITY, and GRACE and for some it may be expressed as "sainthood". Christ alone is the source—and HIS LIVING PRESENCE within us, is the flame that transforms.
Thoughts on Catholic Spirituality and Mysticism
Nourished in Sacrament and Deepened in Silence,
Spirit Draws Us into the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.
Linda Saxton
I believe that through God's mercy and grace we might all aspire to some aspect of sainthood that will be unique to each of us. I'm not referring to piety or martyrdom, miracles or visions, becoming missionaries, or even caring for the sick and poor but ordinary people who live out our everyday lives with virtue truly loving God and communing heart to heart with others, however that manifests. When I entered into full communion with the Catholic Church and received the Sacrament of Confirmation, I embraced my vocation as a lay apostle within the Mystical Body of Christ. Through Baptism, all the faithful share in Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and royal mission; through Confirmation, they are strengthened by the Holy Spirit to bear witness to Christ. The laity live this vocation especially by sanctifying the temporal world through their presence, work, words, and actions. This common priesthood of the faithful differs in essence, though it is ordered toward the same mission, as the ministerial priesthood conferred through Holy Orders. Bishops, priests, and deacons serve the Church’s apostolic Tradition and sacramental life according to their distinct ministries, while every member of the faithful is called to participate actively in the life and mission of the Church according to his or her vocation and gifts. (See CCC 783–784, 897–913, 1268, 1303–1305, and 1546–1547. Catholic Mysticism helps me understand who/what God is in my life, why I exist, the teachings of Jesus Christ and the light of the Holy Spirit guide me in how to live and be in community. I might add that along with the New Testament I have found the Catechism of the Catholic Church a comprehensive manual on how to grow in divinity. I do not say Catholicism is the only and right path to God! It IS the one that gives me teachings and a model of how to live in joy, love, and peace with kindness and compassion; a sacrament that supernaturally/mystically transforms me slowly into that model and another sacrament to help me clear the "rubble" of distractions and negativity as a human being thus clearing the way to God and Heaven. It also provides a global community with a global leader who is guided by the Holy Spirit. God has directed me down several path's in my life journey that are infused in my soul. This website and however it evolves, is one way that I share the love and gratitude that I have for God and the Grace that he bestows on all of us. I hope to encourage you to partake in exploring the mystery of Divine Humanity so that we might journey together, discovering the truths and aliveness of the Love of the Trinity couriered to us through the Holy Spirit. "We love, because He first loved us." ---- John 4:19 I am not an embodiment of sainthood but a witness to being loved radically by Christ - and being slowly and sometimes stubbornly transformed by that love. Please continue reading and participate in the offerings through this website if you find anything here that your heart resonates with and your mind wants to explore further. By the Love of Jesus Christ, Linda K. Saxton
"For I know the plans I have for you" declares the LORD," plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".
Jeremiah 29:11