On Becoming God's Own Prayer in our World

[[Dear Sr Laurel, I am still very much immersed in Father Wenscel Cornelius’s book [Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam] and have also rediscovered Father Louis (Thomas) Merton, and at [the] prompting of something you wrote in a blog I picked up “New Seeds of Contemplation” which is wonderful. I have a question for you which you are welcome to use in the blog if you wish. I keep returning to something you wrote about the hermit eventually becoming “God’s prayer” and I don’t think I understand that. Prayer is usually thought of as the human part of a dialogue with God which might take the form of praise, petition, gratitude, lamentation, the sharing of the person’s life with God which begins (and often stays) at the level of speech or thought. I think that as we grow in our relationship with God our prayer becomes less what we do and more who we are and are becoming as God calls us to life and continual conversion. Is that living in harmony with God’s will becoming God’s prayer ? Thank you for all you do. ]]

Thanks very much for the questions! Good to hear from you again! I am glad you are enjoying Wencel's book. I learned it is out of print and difficult to get, so I am glad you were able to locate a copy!! Yes, I think you have the heart of my answer clear in your mind, and I also think it is important to push your understanding to a bit more radical position. You understand it as the human part of a dialogue with God. I understand prayer as a dialogue as well; in this case, however, the dialogue does not depend on human speech per se. Instead, it is about the human openness to and reception of God's own "speech" where God does not tell us stuff about himself, but rather speaks himself to us in a way where we are loved, challenged, called, and empowered to be our truest selves. I understand prayer not as the human part of a dialogue but, as 1) what happens when the Spirit groans within us and 2) we are empowered to attend to that groaning. As we heard in a recent reading from Paul to the Romans, prayer is always about God's activity within us, first and last. It is God's own activity within us that is the basis of our yearning for God or the resonance of our hearts to/with God; yes, we respond to that presence in various ways, and that too is part of the prayer, but even that response is empowered by God's actions within and around us.

 Another piece of theology that influences me to say we are called to become God's own prayer in the world may be helpful. Theologians like Ernst Fuchs and Gerhard Ebeling think about the human person as a language event. The human person is formed in response to every word spoken to her, every invitation to respond as a human person; it is her very nature to be response in this way. We are not just something that speaks. Instead, we are ourselves a form of speech-act empowered and shaped by the billions and billions of "words" that have uniquely addressed us and to which we have responded more and less fully throughout our lives, but especially by the word of God that is spoken within and to us. To some extent, the language event we are will be expressed in speech, but the truth is both broader and deeper than that. In everything that we are and do we will express the language event we have become. Acts of praise, petition, gratitude, lamentation are more or less partial instances of that larger expression we call "Self" and any one of these may predominate over the others at any given time in our lives and prayer; still, it is the whole person that is a speech act including these varying expressions. 

Thus, the speech act we are will include and represent other expressions as well. I once thought of myself as a scream of anguish. What I knew, however, was that such an inarticulate cry was less responsive than it was merely reactive. It would take time being shaped by God's Love in the many ways that love came to me to transform me into something more articulate and meaning-bearing. (Eventually, I would see myself as called to be a Magnificat.) What I came to know was that over time and in response to God's activity (self-expression) in our lives, we are formed to become more and more articulate expressions or images of God. The speech act we become in this way is what I am talking about when I speak of  "flesh becoming word". This also corresponds to what the Eastern and Western churches speak of as divinization or theosis. Word becomes flesh so that flesh can become Word --- that is, so human beings can come to flawlessly mirror their Creator. We grow into authentic human existence as we hear (or are heard/grasped by) and respond to Word in all of the ways that Word comes to and addresses us. 

John's Gospel is the clearest articulation of this dynamic. To the extent that Jesus responds exhaustively to God, he becomes utterly transparent to him and makes God real (implicates or reveals God) in space and time. Throughout his life, in his death and resurrection, Jesus fully incarnates the Word of God.  At the same time and in the same way, he reveals what it means to be truly and authentically human.  He is the Word Event par excellence and we name this Word event Emmanuel --- God-with-us. We might also say that prayer is less about what Jesus does (though of course, we know him as one who prays) and more about what he is --- a paradigm of prayer in all things because in all things Jesus is the One in whom God is allowed to work and reveal himself exhaustively.

You will remember that I wrote: [[However, in saying I believe the hermit (especially and paradigmatically) is meant to become God's own prayer in the world, what I mean is that in our radical self-emptying and obedience, we open ourselves to becoming the Word God speaks to the world, fully alive with God's vision, hope, and dreams for that same world. This word, like the Word Incarnate in Christ, will be the embodiment or articulation of God's own will, love, life, purposes, etc. We could say that Jesus comes to embody God's own prayer, where prayer is a matter of pouring out one's heart --- something in God that is always creative. When you or I pray, we pour ourselves out to God and our prayer is an expression of all we are and yearn to become. At the same time, in prayer (and thus, in Christ) we are taken up more intimately into God's own life. God's own being, will, and "yearnings" for the whole of creation are realities we are called on to express and embody (incarnate) with our own lives. This is what we speak of as being a "prophetic presence" (or an eschatological one). When we allow this foundational transformation to occur we more fully become the new creation we were made in baptism, a new kind of language or word event; we become flesh-made-Word and a personal expression of the Kingdom/Reign (sovereignty) and prayer of God. 

I believe prayer is about pouring out one's heart to God but always in response to and empowered by God's loving (pouring out his heart to and in) us first.  God shows us the meaning of prayer by pouring himself out and invites us to do the same in response. Eventually, it becomes impossible to disentangle one movement from the other and we live (pray) in God as God lives (prays) in us. Traditionally this ultimate form of prayer is called Union and it is the epitome of what it means to be human as we let God be God-With-Us.

I have written this piece in fits and starts so I hope it reads more coherently than that! If it raises more questions or needs clarifying, please let me know. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience!!

On the Hiddenness of Eremitical Life

[[Hi Sister, I was trying to understand what the Catechism means by the hiddenness of eremitical life. Can you help me understand that?]]

Hi there, yourself! Yes, I think I can help you understand this. I say that because this is one of the terms I have struggled over a long time to understand more deeply in my own journey. As with the elements of the canon itself, hiddenness occurs on a number of levels; all are important; some are more superficial than others and I have tried to understand the ways in which that is true. For instance, the canon calls for stricter separation from the world and that seems to imply the hermit is called to a stricter separation from that required by other Religious, particularly ministerial or apostolic Religious. This separation, to whatever extent and in whatever way it is lived, is defined for religious by their vows and congregational constitutions or Rule. At the most superficial level it implies the qualification of all of one's relationships --- including with power and wealth. We misread stricter separation if our understanding of it stops at a literal closing of the hermitage door on everything outside us or on giving up all relationships, or fail to truly school our hearts with regard to material wealth, and power. 

We must penetrate this term (and the others in the Canon) more deeply. Yes, we need to close the hermitage door on certain realities as both a literal and a symbolic way to express all that is essential to this vocation. For instance, this expression helps us embrace the physical silence and solitude that is necessary if one is to eventually understand all the ways we ordinarily give ourselves to false gods or become enmeshed in things that are unworthy of us or our vocation and need to turn instead to the God of Jesus Christ. That growth in perception and integration takes time as we move from superficial to profound understanding and our similar embrace of deeper and deeper truth. Also, earlier forms of meaning (say the literal closing of the hermitage door on relationships and activities) may be more strict in the beginning of our eremitical lives, and may actually need to be relaxed at other points as we embrace less literal or less superficial meanings of the term hiddenness. 

For example, learning to turn to the God of Jesus Christ in all things and allow him to shape us into Temples of the Holy Spirit, may require regular work with others (spiritual directors, superiors), participation in some limited form of parish ministry (e.g., teaching Scripture), more intense spiritual direction or inner work with specialists, etc. The functional cloister or anachoresis (withdrawal) of eremitical life remains and contributes to hiddenness, but the constraints on moving outside the hermitage or allowing others into the hermitage may well be relaxed in measured ways as one gives oneself to Christ to be remade more fully and deeply as is possible in specific ways in relationship with some few others. In part this leads me to my understanding of the hiddenness of eremitical life.

In all of this what is mainly hidden from the eyes of others is the hermit's relationship with God in Christ and all the work and growth (metanoia) that comes over time as one focuses on this relationship and becoming the person one is called by God to be. Hiddenness is not an end in itself. It serves our relationship with Mystery and for that reason, it is characteristic of assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, and engagement with others that grows out of and even intensifies one's silence of solitude. Hiddenness is the most intimate shape of one's personal journey to and in communion with God, but as I have argued earlier, it is an important and derivative value, not a primary one. 

For each of us, growth in love of God, and maturation in our relationship with God as we move from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, and from brokenness to wholeness is a hidden process. For most, the relationship with God itself is always hidden --- though one can see symptoms and signs of the quality of the relationship by the way the person loves others, themselves, and the whole of creation. The hermit gives over her entire life to this hidden commitment and growth. She will embrace the elements of Canon 603 in order to be sure she is intensely focused on this commitment alone. She does this for God's sake as well as for her own, for the sake of others, and for the sake of the vocation she has been entrusted with. In some ways, we could say that the hermit lives for God alone so that others may understand that this relationship with God is the primary Good in her life --- and should be primary in everyone's life. 

The NT saying, [[Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you,]] is a way of saying, [[ Seek you first and last this relationship with God, and all the other things you need will be added unto you.]] The hermit's witness to this truth is the most vivid one I could imagine here. It witnesses to the completion that is ours in God --- to the eschatological goal of every life. It is a hiddenness that witnesses to the heart, or deepest Being and vocation of the human person. Even the most perceptive spiritual director or Anam Cara cannot completely penetrate the hiddenness of this relationship --- though dimensions of it can be shared. 

You also wrote: [[One writer criticizes hermits like you who wear a habit or use Sister as a title or let people know you are a hermit in your blog. She says that is against the hiddenness of the life (though she also has a blog and writes about being a hermit). I think she believes because she insists on being anonymous, that is what makes her life hidden and that you (or anyone calling themselves a hermit) should be the same.]] As I wrote in an earlier piece, [[The authors [of canon 603 and also the CCC passages] did not merely mean it all happens alone (with God) behind closed doors --- though of course it mainly does this; they knew that the real fruit and processes of eremitical life (and thus, of eremitical formation and discernment) have to do with the functions of the human heart being redeemed and transfigured (made whole and holy) by the invisible God within the context of silence and personal solitude in an intimate relationship which is mainly invisible and ineffable.]] Everything about eremitical life is meant to foster and witness to this deep and profoundly relational Mystery which is served by hiddenness and all those elements of desert spirituality that contribute to the vocation's hiddenness.

I sincerely hope this is helpful.

Mass for the Solemnity of St Benedict and Diaconal Ordination of Don Bosco

Ordination to the Diaconate of the Camaldolese monk (Tanzania), Don Bosco, on the Solemnity of St Benedict. Also announced was the appointment of Camaldolese monk (of Monastery of Camaldoli) Roberto Fornaciari as new bishop of the diocese of Tempio-Ampurias on the island of Sardinia. Dom Roberto speaks at the end of the Mass after the announcement is greeted with lots of applause, drums, etc.

Feast of St Benedict: On the Labor of Prayer

My prayers for and very best wishes to my Sisters and Brothers in the Benedictine family on this Feast of St Benedict! Special greetings to the Benedictine Sisters at Transfiguration Monastery, the Camaldolese monks at Incarnation Monastery in Berkeley, and New Camaldoli in Big Sur, and the Trappistine Sisters at Redwoods Abbey in Whitethorn, CA.

In Chapter 19 of the Rule of Benedict we read, "God's presence is never so strong as while we are celebrating the work of God in the oratory." Rachel Srubas, Oblate OSB, wrote the following in her reflection on this text. 

The Labor of Prayer

You summon me here for the labor

of prayer, and hum within

the congregation's one, hymning voice.

Antiphons that underscore the themes of grace

frame and reinforce our common praise.

In the unsung pauses between psalms,

  my mind stays still, or wanders.

        You offer through both chant and silence

Spirit-guidance I

       may thankfully retrace one day.

 

 

While diocesan hermits have no congregation with whom we say or sing Office most of us do pray some portion of the Liturgy of the Hours each day and some of us sing them. I use the Camaldolese office book and especially love singing Compline from it. I feel a special kinship with those others I know who generally sing (parts of) the Office each day, especially the Camaldolese and the Trappistines of Redwood Abbey. Because my vocation is an ecclesial one and dedicated to assiduous prayer it only makes sense to to pray the Liturgy of the Hours as part of that.

 

For those who have never thought of either saying or singing Office and particularly for those who think of the LOH as something meant only for Religious and Clergy let me remind you that the Liturgy of the Hours is the Official Prayer of the Church and is meant for the Laity as well. Some parishes celebrate parts of the LOH frequently, some only during Holy Week or on special feasts or Sundays.  But all of us are invited by the Church to pray the LOH as part of the Church's life and ministry of prayer.

 

Resources are available for folks who would like to learn to pray Office. One that many really like is Universalis which allows them to download the day's office to their computer or handheld device. Another option is the devotional "Give us this Day" which includes an abbreviated version of Morning and Evening Prayer as well as the Mass readings and reflections on the readings, saint of the day, etc. I use it especially for the reflections and recommend it. It would be a great way to begin praying Morning and Evening Prayer.

Happy Fourth of July (Variation)

Each year this day reminds me that Christians have much to tell America about the nature of true freedom, even while they are grateful for a country that allows them the liberty to practice their faith pretty much as they wish and need. Too often today, however, Freedom is thought of as the ability to do anything one wants -- without real regard for others or their similar call and right to Freedom. Understood this way, freedom (which is really a misunderstanding of license) is the quintessential value of the narcissist. Unfortunately, the pandemic our global community continues to face in greater and lesser ways, has revealed just how prevalent is the valuing of liberty (a license our founders did not enshrine in the Constitution) over genuine freedom; we are seeing it both touted and modeled by some of our leading politicians and their supporters.

And yet, within Christian thought and praxis, freedom is the power to be the persons we are called by God to be. It is the direct counterpart of Divine sovereignty and is other-centered and rooted in empowering relationships. I believe our founding fathers had a keen sense of this, but today, it is a sense Americans often lack. Those of us who celebrate the freedom of Christians can help recover a sense of this necessary value by embracing it more authentically ourselves. Not least we can practice a freedom which is integrally linked to correlative obligations and exists for the sake of all; that is, it involves an obligation to be there for the other, most especially the least and poorest among us so that they too may be all that God has called them to be. We act and struggle to allow everyone to have a voice, indeed, to have and speak with their own voice in their lives and workplaces, in the political and other choices they make and seek to ratify in voting their minds and hearts.

In the past several years, the wearing of surgical masks and sheltering-in-place have become small but powerful symbols of this kind of freedom and its correlative sacrifice for the sake of others. And yet, how difficult these relatively minor inconveniences have been for so many of us. As COVID's danger waxes and wanes and waxes yet again with every new variant, many simply refuse to put others first (or consider them at all!). Still, the truth remains that one way we celebrate this holiday is by refraining from any usual practices which endanger others and our planet --- eschewing fireworks wherever it is unsafe, maintaining social distancing, working for the rights of all, etc. In so doing we demonstrate our freedom to be loving persons who, despite minor inconveniences like masking and continued social distancing whenever appropriate, are only ourselves and only truly free in interdependence with others and all of creation.

But today portions of the United States are in danger of choosing to "protect" a narrow, crippled notion of freedom by refusing to open us to "the other". In significant ways, some in power defend racism and the way it is exercised in law enforcement and symbolized in monuments to past historical figures whose legacy is stained, at best. This year the banning of books, marginalizing of citizens we consider somehow defective or alien, actions taken to prevent all of our citizens from voting or otherwise being effectively heard in our country, and the growing white supremacist movement and unethical and politicized tendencies in even the most powerful and revered court of our land, color this day with shame and sadness. In all of this, we have forgotten that we are free only insofar as we are open to loving others, to sharing our lives and our freedom with the "other", the alien, and those without the privilege of certain forms of wealth and power. Like love, personal freedom is lost when we fail to extend it to others and make "neighbors" of them. 

Once we build walls against the other, so too have we walled ourselves into the narrow confines of our own fear, ignorance, or selfishness and lost our most fundamental identity as the US, the democratic republic we desire to defend. Some today even militate for a second civil war!! But authentic freedom always seeks the freedom of the other, including the freedom to let everyone vote their consciences without unfair constraints. It is expansive and, to some extent, missionary in nature. And it is sacrificial. While the boundaries of American freedom involve borders and finite resources which must be honored and husbanded, its heart is global and so must its vulnerability be --- not only to those who wish to join us in this enterprise of freedom, but to the needs, yearnings, and potential of all of our citizens -- no matter their party, creed, color, or degree of conformity with what we may call the will of God. 

 All good wishes on this anniversary of the birthday of our Nation! May God empower us to live up to the obligations of the personal and national freedom, we recognize as both a Divine gift and human responsibility. And may we respect and celebrate the interdependence we are sometimes still only just learning to associate with this Freedom!