[[ Hi Sister Laurel, I am grateful for your last couple of posts before the one on Maximillian Kolbe. (I said that badly since I also liked the one on Maxillian!!) You wrote about the silence of solitude that it is more than the silence of a person alone or by themselves. You also said, "When I speak of the silence of solitude as goal I mean that we move toward the completion or fullness of communion with God in which we are completely known and loved, and therefore, know and love in return --- and do so as naturally possible. Any anxiety to be heard, accepted, affirmed, and loved for who we are is entirely quieted while we are more able to be ourselves with clarity and articulateness.". . ."The silence of solitude here sings with life and wholeness. It is poor, chaste, and obedient!! We are fully ourselves with and in God." How much of this is influenced by John's Gospel? I ask because it seems like what you write pays a lot of attention to Word and a lot to what John's gospel would call "abiding" -- like abiding in God and God in us.]]
Good job!! Yes!!! If I were to translate the phrase "the silence of solitude" into Scriptural language, I would probably call it [[abiding in God as God abides in me]] --- or maybe just abiding or mutual abiding. Shalom is also a good translation of the term and so is Union. What is critical is that we understand that 1) the canonical term (the silence of solitude) implies relationality in both silence and solitude and 2) the relationality it implies is absolutely redemptive as only a relationship with God can be. You can see, I think how the silence of solitude also implies dying to self into the paradox, [[I, yet not I, but Christ in me]]!!
As you know, I think, I define eremitical solitude as a unique form of community --- rare, little understood, paradoxical, for sure, but a matter of community nonetheless. And silence is only most superficially a matter of external silence. More profoundly, it is a matter of inner silence where our deep woundedness is healed, our unmet needs are submerged and enfolded in God's infinite love, and the cries of pain and anguish we might well be otherwise, are transformed and transfigured into paeans of psalmody and praise. In Canon 603, this silence is as paradoxical as the solitude it reflects and if we ask plainly where or how inner silence is achieved, the answer must by coming to rest in God.
Your question is very timely. Two days ago a friend of mine (Pat) died unexpectedly. Thus, today and yesterday I have been thinking about phrases like "eternal rest", especially in relation to what I know to be true of the silence of solitude, but also because this friend was a member of our class on the Gospel of John where we have been speaking of 1) God's will to be God-with-us (Emmanuel) as something eternal that drives God's creation of anything outside Godself, and 2) abiding with God is another way of speaking about allowing God to fully be Emmanuel. All of these things come together in a dynamic relationship with God that makes us fully or authentically human and allows God's will for Godself to be realized as well. Eternal rest in such a situation means rest from struggle and striving; it means coming to and resting in the fullness of truth, not merely in what we may know but in what and who we are.
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| Pat Snyder |
One other member of the class wrote today to say Pat was [[now having the best day of her life. All her questions answered, she was so interested in all things spiritual.]] I remember learning that a question was a sentence in search of another that would complete it. Questions for me are noisy, restless things that reflect our own noisy, restless, incompleteness. They push themselves forward whenever there is the slightest opportunity and can be indefatigable in their search for meaning, and truth (imagine the incessant questioning of a small child who has learned the power of the words "what", "where", "how" and "why"?!!)They are the means to transcendence and growth. So when I think of human beings as language events I also see them as questions in search of an answer. When I think of Jesus as the Word incarnate, I understand him to be the human question we each are united with the answer (God) that completes him. So, I changed that person's affirmation to read "the question she was (and lived so very well) has been answered"!! That noisy, restless search she was and posed in so many remarkable ways in our faith community has come to resolution and completion. She knows the silence of solitude in a way hermits anticipate and witness to with their lives. She abides in God and knows the "rest" of eternity --- dynamic, fully alive, and inextricably wed to the One Jesus called Abba.
I know I ran with your question in directions you did not suggest or ask about, but the mutuality in the way John understands
abiding in his Gospel, the close link between Shalom and wholeness or holiness, the
relational character of both eternal life (life after death) and what one Gospel commentator calls "eternity life" (life here and now opened up to the life of God), along with the way all of these correspond to C 603's "the silence of solitude" have been knocking around in my head and heart throughout the year. Given your question and Pat's death, it is time to recognize these are all facets of the same gem. It is vastly richer in meaning and beauty than the assertion that "the silence of solitude" in C 603 merely means the external quiet of physically being by oneself.
Though I can't write about this in this post, I believe the other central elements of Canon 603, especially stricter separation from the world and assiduous prayer and penance, are also synonyms for the multifaceted experience of abiding in God and are profoundly Johannine. Thanks for the chance to enlarge on past comments!
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