I have uploaded a meditation on prayer as the encounter with God’s loving gaze and his healing touch, and the way that this encounter alone can bring forth authentic sanctity and true liberation in our hearts, opening up within us the joy and playfulness of a child. It is the first of two meditations that I’ll be adding from my most recent book: Looking into His Loving Gaze: On the Beauty of Prayer. 

This is a book that I have a deep desire to share, since in it I express those things that I would most like others to hear…or rather, I try to create a “space” in which God can speak and open up in human hearts the vulnerable receptivity to experience his gaze of perfect love, his healing and consoling embrace. There is a conviction within me that God has entrusted this message to me, this ministry which becomes incarnate in the words of this book, and I feel a deep responsibility to share it with my brothers and sisters. If you find yourself in agreement with what I have expressed in these two meditations, I would be greatly appreciative if you would help to spread this book to others. I would indeed be glad to send you copies at a very low price, if this is something you feel called to help me in.

I’ll be posting the second meditation in the next couple days, which is the one I most desire to share. But here is the link for the first. (You may want to read it in sections, which are provided in the text, since there is a lot of material to think about.)

I’ve added the second meditation on chastity, which goes much deeper into the reality that I tried to glimpse in the first meditation, deepening and expanding it towards the beauty of God’s Love as well as into the soil of our lives and relationships. Above all, I try to speak to the deep longing in every human heart to be lovingly seen, and to be tenderly held.

After a delay of over a month, I’m finally getting back to posting on the series of writings on prayer and intimacy with God. (I’ve been busy writing the reflections for the 33 days of preparation for consecration to Mary!) I pick up where I left off with the first meditation on chastity, following on the heels of those I devoted to poverty and obedience.

After feeling this “tug” for a long while to write and share more deeply about the mystery of prayer and the call to intimacy with God, and, in addition, to share about my own vision of the great importance of the contemplative and monastic vocation within the Church, I have decided to create this website.

I already have a primary website, At the Wellspring of Childhood: Meditations from the Silence of Solitude, and there is a great deal of content available there (and ever growing). However, I wanted to create a different avenue, a different “space” in which I could express things that complement what is shared there, and yet bear their own unique contours. Above all, I am feeling called to focus more directly on offering an “education in prayer” (to use John Paul II’s words) and on the meaning of authentic “spirituality.” I have been encountering both deep desires and concrete struggles in these areas in my relationships with others, and also a degree of ignorance or misunderstanding. In response to this, I feel convicted by the Lord with the need to share what I have been given, to place myself as the service of this mystery.

The two sites will be linked to one another, “sisters” expressing the same mystery, only from different angles. As for this one, I will post on the “Blog” when new content is added, so you are welcome to follow through WordPress (if you are connected) or through email. I will also organize the content in the menu at the top of the site, for easier access to previously added material.

Blessings and love!

Joshua Elzner