A Contemplative Moment: Seeing the World with New Eyes

"The Desert: Transformation"

from The Eremitic Life

by

Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam

[[The Christian anchorite is not a gnostic, whose isolation from the world takes precedence in order that [she] can secure for [her]self the possibility of reaching "the land of pure spirituality". Such an approach is obviously an illusion which, detected too late, will certainly lead all who adopt it to spiritual disaster. Even provided we agree on the illusionary character of the created world, such an assumption may be justified only if we take into account its relativity. It is true that created things can deceive and beguile us, though it is not because they are deceitful all by themselves, but because the human heart, tangled up in webs of sin and greed, is eager to take pleasure and satisfaction in them. The anchorite never gives up and renounces the world of things out of contempt for them. [She] does so in order to achieve the inner space necessary to appreciate their real value and inner beauty.

Leaving the world and inner renunciation are the path to discovering the logic and truth of the created world. Fathoming inner structures and meanings, the hermit realizes still more clearly that the ultimate value of the world is not constituted by the world itself, but it transcends the world soundlessly. What is essential for human being is the perception of things that last and are eternal. What is needed is a certain distance providing space for authentic freedom of mind and heart, in order to perceive the world and all its problems in truth and love, which means in God. By finding the whole creation at its very Source, the hermit becomes the person able to contemplate. The hermit's contemplation of reality is [her] special way of perceiving it through the eyes of faith. This kind of perception reveals to [her]  the rays of God's magnificence and glory. . . .This truth, however, should be understood and proclaimed not just verbally or intellectually, but above all by means of humbly accepting the gift of our own existence. The acceptance of the gift brings about the inner necessity of giving it back to its donor in love. The need to make such a sacrifice is the essence of  Christian ascetic life and inner conversion.]]

Note: I chose this reading from Cornelius Wencel for several reasons. The main one has to do with the Solemnity of the Ascension and the way it demands that we learn to see everything with new eyes. The disciples had to get their eyes out of the clouds and onto the world newly constituted around them. In Christ, they (and we) are gradually taught to see all of reality with the eyes of an artist like Bro Mickey McGrath, osfs (see Solemnity of the Ascension).