My Silence at the Monastery
Friday 6:30 am Clouds drift across the sunrise, obscuring my view but beautiful anyway. Pink and orange strands of light, peeking through and dancing with the clouds here and there, a symphony of frogs, crickets, and ducks playing along the edge of the gravel road I'm standing on. A lovely morning prayer to accompany my musings and give me sweet visions of God ...
A vein of sapphires hides in the earth
a sweetness in fruit
and in plain-looking rock lies a golden ore
and in seeds the treasure of oil
Like these, the Infinite
rests concealed in the heart.
~Mahadevi, India 12 c, in Woman Prayers
Today is the day to begin the ascent, emerging out of the Silence, confident that transformation has taken place in the soul, a deepening and widening, an expanse of space from which to live. It is a day to begin turning toward the world and it's people.
The Holy may speak to you from many hiding places at any time.
The world may whisper in your ear.
Or ... the spark of God may whisper in your heart. Listen.
~Rachel Naomi Remen
I pray, "whisper, my God, whisper your Word into my Heart."
1 Corinthian 15:51-58. These words capture me: Listen, I will tell you a Mystery! It is a verse that sings in my soul. It is the deepest of mysteries in its context for the mystery is the resurrection. As I leave the monks and our midday prayers, once more I walk the Stations of the Cross. Over these days I have been drawn to each station in different ways at different times. Walking the Stations has become ... remembering. Remembering Jesus. Remembering the journey. Remembering the sacrifice, the death. Remembering the Risen Christ. Remembering ... LOVE. Loving God, Loving Self, Loving Others. And therein lies the fruit of my devotion.
As the sun begins to wane ... I pray with the monks. Eucharistic Adoration ... in silence. Vespers. Rosary ... then silence. Compline. And I read the Gospel. Luke 24:1-12 and as the words jump off the page, my heart sings, "Remember ... he is risen." O God, you are precious! And I am filled with awe and love and deeper devotion as I drift off to sleep my last night "under" the stars.
"Devotion by itself has little value ...
and may even be a form of self-indulgence ...
the spiritual life of individuals has to be extended
both vertically to God
and horizontally to other souls.
The more it grows in both directions,
the less merely individual
and therefore the more truly personal it will be.
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