from Guigo the Carthusian.
Guigo the Carthusian quoted in Ordinary Graces
Lorraine Kisly, ed.We all live by the same bread, each of us receiving his own share. . . In this gift which I have received I possess the whole of Christ and Christ possesses the whole of me, just as the limb which is possessed by the body in its turn possesses the whole body. Therefore that portion of faith which has been distributed to you is the fragment put in your mouth; but unless you reflect, often and devoutly, on what you believe, unless you will as it were break it up into pieces with your teeth, that is, with your spiritual senses, chewing it and turning it over in your mouth, it will stick in your throat, that is, it will not go down into your understanding. . . . Faith offers to us things which we cannot see, and there must be great intellectual labor before such things are passed down into the mind. Unless this dry bread be moistened by the saliva of wisdom coming down "from the Father of light," you will labor in vain, for what you have gathered up by thinking does not penetrate to your understanding. . . Therefore your faith will be idle unless by often thinking about it "you earn your bread by the labor of your hands." And yet, you cannot think about all you believe, or understand at once all that you think, but only by degrees, and as it were in fragments; and so your food can be properly prepared only by great labor.
Further the deponent sayeth not.
