Becoming Fire

A young monk named Abba Lot asked the elder, Abba Joseph, what more he could do to live a more faithful life. Abba Joseph stretched out his hands, and his fingers became like “ten lamps of fire,” responding, “If you will, you can become all flame.”+

The world is cold; someone must be on fire, so that people can come and put their cold hands and feet against that fire. If anyone allows this to happen, then he becomes a fireplace where men can warm themselves. Real zeal is standing still and letting God be a bonfire in you. It is not easy to have God’s fire within you. We must have God contribute through us, which means nakedness before him must come first.

You have to pray that immense prayer of silence in which eventually you become a prayer yourself.

~From In the Footsteps of Loneliness, by Catherine Doherty

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