The Upcoming LCG Retreat

The yearly Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani retreat is this weekend. I am looking forward to seeing all the people, as well as making my Promise on Sunday afternoon. Why we call them promises and not vows? I don't know, but my guess is we call them promises because we are not entering a canonical relationship. A Benedictine Oblate enters a canonical relationship with their Oblation. The Lay Cistercian does not.

Why not? On the one hand I feel somewhat let down that I've taken on a spiritual practice with a goal in mind -- this upcoming commitment -- only to find I am to make a promise, and not take a vow. This was resolved one Sunday after mass, while sitting out on the Guesthouse library porch with Fr. James. The gospel reading that day had been not to take the seats of honor, to be first, lest someone more important come in. When I mentioned the subject of vows vs. promises to Fr. James, he said, "you want to be first!"

After I had a chance to internalize that enough to break it into pieces and understand it, the truth of it became apparent. I had a problem with inner poverty. Exterior poverty is nothing without interior poverty, and I had none. Not a pleasant self realization, yet, most instructive. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, "to vow is to promise, and a vow is a promise." So was I hung up on a word choice, wanting vow to be used instead of promise? In my mind I still thought that a promise was somehow less than a vow.

Those issues that drive us, subconscious, (and quite devious in their ways), are most harmful when we do not see them, or fail to notice their work. Mine was part of a long cherished desire of mine to be committed to the Church. To my mind it was less to make a promise than to make a vow. Seen in the light of "you want to be first" I now understand my desire to think of myself as more holy. IN my own defense, I do not consciously think about that, all I am saying is that I was sickened to discover this little quirk within me.

The ceremony of my promising is this Sunday, the 30th of September. At this time I have a firm intention to make my promise, sign my document on the altar of the guest chapel, and even bring it home with me. Coming into new life in Christ is a hard journey. That which makes it hard is our tendency to sin. In my pride I felt my promise couldn't be as important as my vow. A promise to God, is a promise to be kept!

Breviary Tidbits

Here is something I found at the pre-Vatican II Breviary.net. It is written by Fr. Pius Parsch, in the 1950s.

And yet priest, religious, or lay person could well find more than enough prayer formulas in the breviary that would serve admirably to clothe the spirit of his prayer; he could find satisfaction for all his prayer needs in their most ideal form, if only he would learn to pray the Office at the proper time and with the proper understanding. There would be no need for him to say even a single Our Father in addition to the Divine Office. The Office contains prayers aplenty, and as for content, which is the only really important thing, he can pour as much devotion and meaning into the prayers of the breviary as he is capable of expressing. If one feels the urge to spend more time at prayer, he can double the time of the Office with a slower, more meditative recitation. In our century we will have to relearn how to focus our prayer life on the breviary and on the psalms.

That paragraph is packed and solid with meaning. He makes a passionate case for the serious use of the breviary, and I have two out of three volume set, with Fr Parsch's meditations, published just prior to Vatican II. I first read it when I was sixteen years old. It made an impression on me, and taught me that saying the Liturgy was to participate with the Host of Heaven. It gave me a sense of the contact between myself and the invisible world.

You might think I would be more careful about praying the LOTH. Usually, around 2:30 in the afternoon I start thinking about Nones, very seldom do I go and pick up the book and say Nones. However, I do stop and remember God. If there are going to be moments of contemplation in my day, it is going to be at such a moment. What is needed is a discipline of picking up the book and doing it.

A friend once said to me that when you set a precedent of praying at certain times, you have made an appointment with the Holy Spirit, which knows when to find you in prayer. Not showing up for prayer is breaking an appointment with the Holy Spirit. When I keep that in mind I do not falter. But, boy, is it easy to forget!

Temptations in Ho-Hum Spiritual Phase

There exists in life times of hum-drum, ordinary, blah-ness. This is one of them for me. That it is also a challenging time shouldn't be surprising, either. When nothing much special is going on we tend to want to make something happen; spice things up a little. It's at times like this that people who like a lot of drama in their lives will manufacture some drama, hypochondriacs will suddenly fall ill; there is any number of ways we can transform our hum-drum into something more interesting.

Really they are sinful veils that stand between us and God, so they can lead us to forgetting God. It only takes a flicker of the attention away from God to become a permanent forgetting of God. Of course, that is an exaggeration, but one that dissuades me from letting my mind forget to whom I belong.

This period is more treacherous than a flat out temptation because of the ease with which hum-drum becomes forgetting. To drift away from God is infinitely more shameful than to have committed some willful sin. The only way such drifting can occur is through our countless acts of forgetting God. Each little speck of time we forget, is a chink in our armor.

Writer's Block in the Spiritual Life

For some reason I am finding hard to write in this blog. I can't think of a reason for it but today it shook me when I opened the blog and saw that the last entry was St. John Chrysostom. Probably it's because sometimes my brain dries up and I can't think of anything worth writing. Bryan has mentioned a couple of times how tiring it can become keeping a blog updated. At some point it becomes more like work and less like what you meant to get out of the whole blogging business to begin with.

The only thing to call it is writer's block. The question immediately raises: is there a blockage in my spiritual life? I have to say no, it's more of an uneventful state. As everyone tries to lead a spiritual life will admit, there are times of ho-hum. Nothing good is happening, nothing bad is happening either. There aren't hard times, or particularly blessed times. It's just ... Ordinary Time. Haha.

St, John Chrysostom, Doctor

As stated some time ago, I intend to write something on the Doctors of the Church on their feast days, instead of every day until they are all finished. So, today is John Chrysostom. As you might recall he was run out of town by the Empress Eudoxia when he started criticizing ostentatious dress in women. We know all too well what happens when conspicuous consumption is criticized: you are labeled un-American! Clearly John would have been run out of the USA also.

Today on Universalis, there is a snippet from one of his sermons quoted, which I quote here.

The waters have risen and severe storms are upon us, but we do not fear drowning, for we stand firmly upon a rock. Let the sea rage, it cannot break the rock. Let the waves rise, they cannot sink the boat of Jesus. What are we to fear? Death? Life to me means Christ, and death is gain. Exile? ‘The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord. The confiscation of goods? We brought nothing into this world, and we shall surely take nothing from it. I have only contempt for the world’s threats, I find its blessings laughable. I have no fear of poverty, no desire for wealth. I am not afraid of death nor do I long to live, except for your good. I concentrate therefore on the present situation, and I urge you, my friends, to have confidence.

Do you not hear the Lord saying: Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst? Will he be absent, then, when so many people united in love are gathered together? I have his promise; I am surely not going to rely on my own strength! I have what he has written; that is my staff, my security, my peaceful harbour. Let the world be in upheaval. I hold to his promise and read his message; that is my protecting wall and garrison. What message? Know that I am with you always, until the end of the world!

If Christ is with me, whom shall I fear? Though the waves and the sea and the anger of princes are roused against me, they are less to me than a spider’s web. Indeed, unless you, my brothers, had detained me, I would have left this very day. For I always say “Lord, your will be done”; not what this fellow or that would have me do, but what you want me to do. That is my strong tower, my immovable rock, my staff that never gives way. If God wants something, let it be done! If he wants me to stay here, I am grateful. But wherever he wants me to be, I am no less grateful.

Yet where I am, there you are too, and where you are, I am. For we are a single body, and the body cannot be separated from the head nor the head from the body. Distance separates us, but love unites us, and death itself cannot divide us. For though my body die, my soul will live and be mindful of my people.

You are my fellow citizens, my fathers, my brothers, my sons, my limbs, my body. You are my light, sweeter to me than the visible light. For what can the rays of the sun bestow on me that is comparable to your love? The sun’s light is useful in my earthly life, but your love is fashioning a crown for me in the life to come.

Living Mysteriously

Mysterious: Adj. 1. Of an obscure nature.
2. Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding.

A lot of different things take up space in our minds. Some of it is important, "do I need to call the police?" Some is trivial, "what should I watch on television tonight?" Every phone call, and every email; every passing notion while driving, riding, or just thinking; that is the stuff from which we construct reality. There is nothing wrong with that, it's just the way things are with us.

Another reality also exists beneath our construction of reality. This is the reality of God. Trinity is. We might or might not even be aware of God's presence, but that does not change the reality of his presence. For the Christian this is assumed to be an understood reality. Perhaps, though, too often it is not. Most Nazi's were baptized Christians. A religion is nothing if it does not reflect each person's inner experience. That experience has to be strong enough to form a Church. As a Christian, I, you, the whole lot of us, are to live in the reality of God given to us by Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit that brings it from the heart of the Trinity, to us!

How is it then that we 'profess with our mouths' things that we fail to do each and every day? Simply by forgetting. Certainly your attention during working hours should be upon your work, to suggest otherwise is ludicrous. The question really is, are you working as a person who knows that their work is done before almighty God?
The true work of our lives as Christians is to open our awareness of God's presence in our phone calls, emails, encounters at the Stop N Shop: the list is endless. In that way we might approach the honor of bringing the presence of Christ into every encounter.
That is how we might participate in living mysteriously. Another way, and very pleasant, are those times that good old fashion "consolation" comes. And to quote from St. Ignatius:

I call it consolation when some interior movement in the soul is caused, through which the soul comes to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord . . .

That is a wonderful piece of writing, very descriptive, but it does make the experience sound like a kind of holiness most often associated with hifalutin holy cards. Nothing could be further from the truth. Simple awe at the beauty of the dawn can be transformed into a consolation. We you experience awe, sorrow, or even joy, you are in the moment of consolation.

O Lord, we sin in forgetting your mysterious presence among us. We confess the faith of Christ crucified, and bow down before you in thanksgiving. The terror of your mighty storms tearing the skies and cracking open the trees; the silent miracle of dew evaporating upon the grass; by failing to see you there, O Holy God, we fail in thanksgiving. Grant us, Lord, your grace to amend our foolish ways, and open our eyes to the miracle of the world around us. You shine out at us from every face, God in glory, even from those the hardest to love. Bring us all to your everlasting presence in heaven.

Thomas Merton, Journals

When people ask me what is my favorite work by Thomas Merton, I always say "the journals." I say it because I mean it -- those are the truest and deepest Thomas Merton. I fully expect to have to defend that statement.

Many years ago when I was only just discovering the joy that can be had in reading, it rapidly became clear that some of the most interesting reading on the planet has got to be journals written by people who actually had things worth sharing. Think of our knowledge of the Fire of London had Samuel Pepys not written his famous Diary. He gave us invaluable information about history and culture.

A book of essays, stories, sermons, what have you...always has some type of ultimate point. It is about something. It is a through designed thought, from beginning to end, much like the floor plan of a house. It does not matter if you are talking about novels, plays, or temper tantrums!

Journals/diaries, are not like that. They come in day to day events, reflections, or thoughts about a book you are reading. The journal records the you of the day, as you are. Out of all those passing days and differing entries you begin to see the hand of God at work in your life. God's hand was at work in Merton's life, and can be discerned in the journals most vividly. Yes, his great books are magnificent, but they are not the only magnificent work that he did. Merton's life was his greatest gift. It was his life that allowed those books to be written, and because of that, when I read his journals, I more clearly understand my own life, and my own struggles.