...seeking that exact pitch

Monday of the Second Week of Lent

Feast of the Chair of St. Peter

St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of the Christian as an "instrument played by the Holy Spirit."  The aim of asceticism is to keep this instrument in tune.  Mortification is not simply the progressive control of instinct by deadening the appetites of the heart.  That is too crude a view.  It is rather like the tightening of a violin string.  We do not just go on twisting and twisting until the string breaks.  That would not be sanctity, but insanity.  No:  What we must do is bring the strings of the delicate instrument, which is our whole being, to the exact pitch which the Holy Spirit desires of us, in order that the Spirit may produce in us the exquisite melody of divine love that we were created to sing before the face of of God.
Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration, 1965 Abbey of Gethsemani
(found in Sourcebook for Lent p 148)

My recent readings in the history of Christian voices over the centuries have convinced me that the most imaginative are the most revelatory.  

That my imagination may be more and more finely tuned for the hearing and the speaking!