Letters to Malcolm by C.S. Lewis

While I was reviewing various journals and writings I have collected during my New Year's retreat, I came across these quotes from C.S. Lewis from Letters to Malcolm, which I read during my '06 retreat. Here are a few that were particularly poignant as I reread them:

“It is well to have specifically holy places, and things, and days, for without these focal points or reminders, the belief that all is holy and 'big with God' will soon dwindle into mere sentiment” (75).

“The truth is I haven't any language weak enough to depict the weakness of my spiritual life” (113).

“Memory can transfigure – how often some momentary glimpse of beauty in boyhood is a whisper which memory will warehouse as a shout” (122).

“The moment of prayer...involves for me as its condition...the reawakened awareness that this 'real world' and 'real self' are very far from being rock-bottom realities.... [If this awareness can be achieved,] this situation itself, at every moment, a possible theophany. Here is the holy ground; the Bush is burning now.... The prayer preceding all prayers is 'May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.' ...Only God himself can let the bucket down to the depths in us.... Every idea of Him we form He must in mercy shatter. The most blessed result of prayer would be to rise thinking 'But I never knew before. I never dreamed...'” (81,82).

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