Can/Should Hermits Sing Office??

[[Dear Sister, I do have a question, or rather a question put to me by some people. My prayer-life is structured around the Liturgy of the Hours, which I chant/recite and sing out loud on my own. When hearing about how I pray the Hours vocally, the questioners (priests) could not get their heads wrapped around the fact that I could try and live a life of silence and then not pray the Hours silently(!). I think their surprise mostly has to do with how they perceive silence and the silent life. Their question has set me thinking. I am planning to give them an answer.

There are some points I want to address in my answer. - The difference between personal prayer and the prayer of the Church. - How the Church’s liturgy presupposes a holistic (non-dualistic) anthropology. Celebration/worship is therefore not just something cerebral or disembodied, but uses all our senses and physical, mental and emotional faculties, and sanctifies our entire person. - How silence can lead to song, and in fact is a prerequisite for true sound/song/speech/word/Word. - How the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours speaks of moments of ‘Sacred Silence’ and in doing so therefore implies vocal prayer. - How although external silence is an important instrument in prayer-life, it does not determine and qualify the silence of solitude.

How would you react? What would be the points you would want to make clear? Perhaps you feel the Hours should indeed be prayed silently by a hermit? And if so, why? Are these suitable questions for a nice long blog-posting?! I hope so👌 If they are, there is no rush. First enjoy Christmas as well as enjoying rounding off your Mark-studies! (I have a another question up my sleeve, but will reserve that for 2021.....)]]

Many thanks for your question and your patience. We did finish the Gospel of Mark about a week and a half ago and are preparing to do the Gospel of Matthew now. But I have some weeks before that needs to be ready so here I am, finally getting to your question!!! Moreover, it's my Feast Day (Conversion of  St Paul in case I don't get this finished this evening) so it's a very good day to think and write about singing Office and the place of singing more generally in my own life!

 When I think of the way folks reacted to you I would be inclined to react myself by laughing a bit and commenting on how little hermits and their lifestyle are understood today (and have been all through history for that matter)! All of your points are fine; any complete response would include them or some version of them. (I have a quibble or question regarding your use of the term "qualify" in your observation on the silence of solitude and its relation to physical or external silence, but I get your main point and agree with that.) What seems especially important to me are your emphases on the whole person and the relation of physical  or external silence to Word; the distinction (and overlap) between physical silence and what canon 603 calls "the silence of solitude" is also critical. In order to speak about these important elements, I would contextualize them within a theology of the obedient life (the life of prayer) and of human being as a dialogical reality or language "event" which is meant and called to mediate the presence of the real God in space and time. So, does the silence of eremitical life prevent hermits from singing Office? Why or why not?

First of all then, I suppose I would not say that I live a life of silence so much as I live a life of prayer centered on God which is open, attentive, and responsive to God. More, I live this life within an ecclesial context of physical solitude. That, of course absolutely requires physical silence, but important as it is, the eremitical life is not primarily about silence. If your friends, for instance, believe that silence is the overarching value of your life or is something you value without reference to a larger reality, viz, the call to obedient life, it could lead  to their misunderstand the nature of eremitical life. On the other hand, if they understand that it is seeking or being open to God that is primary,  that we are committed to learning to listen for/to as well as to respond fully to the One who reveals Godself in Christ to/in every person as well as in the whole of creation, they might have a bit easier time understanding the relative importance of silence and too, the difference between physical or external silence and the silence of solitude. 

My first point would be then that in the eremitic life obedience is more primary than silence; silence serves obedience in the eremitical life, both in terms of listening and in terms of being appropriately responsive. Both dimensions are included in the Christian notion of "hearkening" or "obedience". Thus, precisely because silence serves obedience (as does physical solitude in this context), it means that other things can and will relativize the hermit's physical silence. This is especially true if these things also contribute not only to her prayer, but to becoming God's own prayer in the world.

This last week I was rereading Wencel's book on Eremitic Life and I came across a passage I had once marked: "To search for God means above all to enter the way of faith and silence that releases the spring of prayer at the bottom of the human heart." I believe, though, that he would agree with me that once it is released, it may express itself in song. (It may also express itself in poetry, painting, music, writing, etc.) Wencel also identifies God as the original abyss of silence, and in the same sentence he refers to this same reality as a "song of love." Wencel understands the Mystery which is at the heart of eremitic life and finds no conflict in identifying the deepest silence one can know with the song of love it also is. He is not concerned about the paradox he has constructed here because he knows these two things held together in tension express a larger and ineffable truth. Prayer shares the same paradox and is moved by the same Mystery. Hermits know silence. They move in it and through it and look for it to help transform them into an expression of the "silence of solitude" -- something much richer than the sum of physical silence and aloneness. It seems to me then that as I point to and then celebrate the coming to be of that deeper, richer reality canon 603 calls  "the silence of solitude," it is entirely  appropriate, even necessary that one will often do so in song!

Another piece of my own thought on this is the notion that human beings are dialogical at their very core. We are, in Gerhard Ebeling's terms, "language events" --- brought into being by the Word/Logos of God and brought to ever greater maturity and articulateness by every lifegiving word spoken to us and every integral response we make. We are beings who are summoned into existence and called to ever greater authenticity and fullness of being by God and our lives are shaped by the way we hearken to this Presence. We begin our lives incapable of speech or of choosing our own direction or allowing God to shape our lives. Circumstances may keep us relatively incapable, relatively mute -- though at the same time they may wound us so seriously that we are little more than a defensive "No!" or a scream of anguish. When we are loved, however --- consistently, truly, and profoundly loved, more and more we will find our own voice and express the love that has called us to growing wholeness. 

Sometimes our expression of this true existence will be silence, but it will not be the silence of muteness. Rather it will be the silence of a heart too full of awe and gratitude to express with words. Other times we will (try to) find words for it and write poetry or prose commensurate with what we are trying (and always failing) to express. And sometimes it will be in music or song. This does not mean we only sing when we are joyful; sometimes what we sing will have the character of lament, for instance. What is always true is that as we respond to the prayer God is making of us, we use the form of response which best suits the situation and who we are at that moment in time. Just as we learn to pray our lives, so too do we learn to sing our lives. Again, it seems appropriate then that some of our prayer, but especially psalms and canticles be sung when that fits the circumstances.

I do sing Office (especially Compline or Night Prayer) --- unless I have a cold or (sometimes) am otherwise not feeling well. You are entirely correct that silence can lead to song and that it is a prerequisite to speech/word/ song. I remember in High School being taught in a music class that the rests (silences) in the music were as important as the notes because the rests helped transform noise into meaningful sound or music. The teacher pointed out that without rests (appropriate, measured silences) we would have only (meaningless) noise. If we are to become God's own prayers in our world, if we are to hear God and respond appropriately, then silence is critically necessary. We need silence to become an articulate expression of and response to God's own song of love. And if we are moved to sing in response, then sing we must. That is the way of genuine obedience; after all, c 603 hermits make vows of obedience, not silence!

I will leave this here for now. You have been more than patient and for right now this is all I have to add to the points you made so well. If I should think of something I left out I will add another post -- a kind of "part II" perhaps. I am well aware I have not spoken at all about the ecclesial nature of the consecrated hermit's vocation here and though there are a number of articles here about that, I well may need to do that as an enlargement on your own point re: private and liturgical prayer. At the same time I haven't said much here about the distinction between physical or external silence and the "silence of solitude" and I definitely may need to say more about that. Significantly, Canon 603 does not read "silence and solitude" but rather "the silence of solitude". The most important thing about it for the purposes of this post is that it is always richer than the apparent sum of its parts because eremitical solitude itself is not just about being alone, but about existing fully and integrally in an ongoing, active, dialogue with God (and all that is of God). In the meantime, I hope this finds you well and in good voice!!

On working With God Towards Wholeness and Holiness

[[Dear Sister Laurel, you write a lot about working toward wholeness and holiness. I had always thought that holiness was something God gave us and so something we prayed for, like humility or other virtues. Can a person get to genuine holiness without working towards it themselves? Can't they just pray to God to make them holy, or humble, or courageous, or whatever?. It is not that I have gotten the impression that you are trying to make yourself holy, but I have read blogs by people who have a lack of this or that and pray that God will take care of their deficiency. Could you say a little more about what you mean when you speak of working towards Communion and union with God?]]

Completely great questions! Important questions!! Thank you. First, I am very grateful you added that I have never given you the impression that I am working in a way which means I am trying to make myself holy. That would be completely futile but also it would give a very skewed notion of what spirituality is all about. To think we could  do this is akin to jumping off a cliff and then trying to stop our fall by pulling on the tops of our shoes!! After all, God is the only source of holiness because God is holiness itself, just as God (him)self is love, truth, beauty, and so forth.

At the same time one can approach things like holiness, reconciliation, humility and other human virtues, as though they are ordinarily and simply infused by God without much more than a prayer for this here or there. These are all great graces but ordinarily this is not how such things work, nor is it ordinarily how God works! Growth in holiness is part of our growth in authentic humanity. We cannot simply pray for God to make us authentically human as though it takes no cooperation (and so, no real effort) on our own part. Cooperating with the grace of God is something learned as well as it is enabled by grace itself. It is also something that requires the healing of obstacles --- obstacles to listening deeply and responding equally profoundly, obstacles to loving and allowing oneself to be loved, obstacles to trusting as profoundly as Jesus or Mary and Joseph (and so many others) trusted!

The work I have spoken of here recently and in the past is work which fosters the ability to cooperate with God and to allow God's grace to flourish in my life. It is particularly helpful in learning to be attentive to my own heart, and therefore, to that place within myself where God laughs, sings, and speaks to me in ways which create me at the same time. Beyond this learning to be attentive, the work I do with my Director helps me to be reconciled with my deepest self and potentialities. What I mean here is that it assists in the healing and doing away with obstacles which prevent these deepest and God-given potentialities from being realized in my own self, and thus too, in my ministry, attitudes, relationships with God and others, etc.

We all have wounds leading to defense mechanisms that cripple or skew our ability to respond authentically --- or which cause the numbing of awareness of the God-given potentialities which exist deep within us. We all have things which stand in the way of our becoming the persons God has created us to be. We all have forms of woundedness which make loving and being loved difficult sometimes, or which prevent us from trusting ourselves and others, or from walking courageously in our world, satisfied with and even exulting in who God made us to be. (Sometimes these wounds and obstacles prevent us from even knowing who we really are made to be!) The work I have spoken here of doing, both alone and with my Director (delegate), is a methodical approach to dealing with the things which prevent us from responding whole-heartedly, responding exhaustively with body, mind, heart, and soul, to the love and creative will of God, just as it helps enable us to make and become that whole-hearted exhaustive response to God's Word we are called to be.

It involves prayer, of course, but also it involves writing which nurtures one's capacity for a healthy interiority; it is focused on learning to listen attentively to everything that goes on within oneself (body, mind, and heart). The aim of the work I have been doing is not just wholeness but also transparency --- meaning that when a person sees me they are seeing the real me in a way which allows the Spirit and Life of God to shine through. It is a simple matter of "what one sees is what they get" -- no pretence, no defenses, no crippling insecurities, and no need to bend to peer pressure or the expectations of others. (Meeting appropriate expectations is another matter entirely!) We human beings, I have written often here, are a covenantal reality, a dialogical "event" where God, who is a constitutive part of our very being, speaks or calls and we respond in ways which create us as God's own persons. We become a response to God's call, to his love, beauty, truth, and simplicity. We become an incarnation of the God Christ himself revealed fully and exhaustively; that is what I believe is the vocation of every human being as we share in the life of Christ and witness to his uniqueness. Again. the work I have spoken of helps enable this to become true as a (more and more) fully embodied reality in my own life. It not only helps me to be completely honest with God, myself, and others, but to be an expression or incarnation of Divine and human truth. I believe this transparency in wholeness is what the tradition refers to as holiness. It is an expression  of Union with God.

I suppose that I see all dimensions of this work as prayer or at least prayerful. Of course it is not as peaceful or quietly challenging as quiet prayer, for instance, most usually is. In fact it can be extremely painful and "bloody" (so to speak!). But even so, it is simply part of a life committed to attentiveness and responsiveness to God and God's will for my own life and the life of all creation. There has always been a danger in Christianity that folks would sit back, pray, and wait for God to do it all for us. (Think of Paul speaking to the Thessalonians about those who will not work: "those who will not work will not eat"; he was not speaking to those who were merely lazy, but to those who sat back waiting for the second coming.) Sometimes that route was known as "quietism". While there are such things as infused graces, infused virtues, and infused contemplation, for instance, and while anyone who prays regularly will know these things first hand, these  are not the ordinary way God works in our lives. It is possible to see all of those things I spoke of above as obstacles, as manifestations of sin in need of reconciliation. The work I have written here about doing is simply part of cooperating with God, working with God so that he may live and work within me freely and so the creation he seeks to do within and through me can be fully and exhaustively realized.

I have only just touched on the surface of things here (especially the notion of genuine holiness as transparency in wholeness), and I may decide to write more about it as follow up, but if it raises questions for you or leaves anything especially unclear please get back to me and I will give it another shot. Thanks again for a really great couple of questions!

To What or Whom is the Hermit Called and Sent?

[[Dear Sister, you wrote recently about anointing as a prophetic sacrament and one which marks one's call or "commission" to be sick within the Church. How do you understand your own call to eremitical life? Do you feel called to be a prayer warrior or to teach Scripture? You were commissioned at your profession but what were you commissioned to do? Was it to pray? To do penance? Because you do some limited ministry in your parish do you see these things as part of your commissioning or mission? To what and to whom is the diocesan hermit sent?]]

Thanks for your questions and observations. Because of a conversation I had with a hermit living back East (soon to be perpetually professed under canon 603!), I think I may have written about this in the past two or three years but I can't find the post so I'll just start over. In that conversation we talked about the hermit being sent, but not being sent out to teach or nurse or do pastoral ministry as a chaplain might, but rather, being sent into the hermitage.  I want to enlarge on this idea; in doing so I will speak of the hermit's mission and the charism of her life which I identify as canon 603's "the silence of solitude".

Three and a half years ago, as some readers will know, I began a process of focused personal formation with my Director. It was a process of spiritual formation, but also of personal healing (the healing of memories, of trauma associated with chronic illness, etc) and  personal growth which supported my maturation as a theologian and hermit. The process was (and is) an intense one which demanded time taken from other things on my part and on the part of my Director as well. I remember saying to her, that the Church had professed me to live this vocation in her name and that if we discerned that this work was a piece of growing in this vocation then the Church had implicitly given me permission to undertake this work. I felt entirely free to undertake something which would demand time, energy, and certain limitations on writing, study, and limited ministry in my parish. What I did not say to Sister M (though I'm sure she knew this anyway) was that I thought this was actually part of the charism of an eremitical vocation, and part of what I was actually commissioned to undertake.

So what is the hermit called to and what is the charism (unique gift quality) of her vocation? More, what is she commissioned or missioned to do/live? Most simply put I think, a hermit is called to witness to the fact that human beings are completed by God, that God alone is sufficient for us ("My grace is sufficient for you, my power is perfected in weakness."), and that union with God is the goal and fulfillment of human life. I am not commissioned to go out into the world and teach or preach or do retreats, or even spiritual direction, etc --- at least I am not primarily called to these things! Hermits are not sent out into the larger world but into the silence and physical solitude of the hermitage so that in that desert environment -- with, in, and through Christ -- we may let God be God and be made into and be the human beings God calls us to be. If we succeed in this, then our lives will witness to Paul's affirmation about the sufficiency of grace in 2 Cor 12:9 and we will be a source of hope to those who need it most --- those estranged from God, themselves, and others, those who believe their lives are worthless or empty of meaning, those who have nothing to recommend them in terms of the powers and values of this world and who feel unloved and lost.

God alone is sufficient for us. No one and nothing else is. We are made for a love which is greater than anything we might have known or imagined apart from God. We are called to a life which transcends the limits and horizons of this entire world/cosmos. We are precious beyond saying, treasures in earthen vessels who are completed by the God who made all we know and summons it to fulfillment in Him. The love of/by others prepares us for this infinite, transcendent love but cannot replace it. Again, God alone is sufficient for us. Hermits are sent into the narrow confines of their hermitage in order to witness to the fact that this limited space (and this limited human life!) opens up onto eternity in God. They give themselves over to God in prayer and penance, study, spiritual direction and similar personal formation and, in every way they can, say yes to being God's counterpart, God's covenant partner. During this Advent season we prepare ourselves for a God called Emmanuel, a God who promises to be with us -- a healing, sanctifying, comforting and empowering Love-in-Act who will allow nothing to separate us from Him (Rom 8). Hermits say (and have been commissioned to say with their lives) that indeed God IS with us!!

The wholeness, peace, hope, and the cessation of all striving, fear, and anxiety in Christ, is what "the silence of solitude" refers to when it is seen as the goal of eremitical life. This "stillness" both leads to and is the result of eremitical solitude or communion with God. It is the essence of hesychasm. In a more immediate sense the silence of solitude is the environment of being alone with God, and in the more ultimate sense it is the gift (charism) which the hermit witnesses to/is for the whole church and world. We are each sent into the hermitage, a place of silence and solitude to allow God to make of us instances of "the silence of solitude" --- where solitude is defined in terms of wholeness and the fulfillment of individual truth/selfhood (holiness) in the Spirit of God.  Each person is a language event -- the embodiment or expression of the Word of God spoken within them to others. Hermits are a particular kind of language event, a contemplative instance of what canon 603 calls "the silence of solitude",  something formed in and ever so much richer than mere silence and solitude added together. The Church commissions her hermits to proclaim the Gospel to others in a way which allows them to hope in the promise of their own lives and look to God as the ground and source of all their truest potential and yearning.

Beyond this I personally do not feel called to be a prayer warrior --- though of course I pray for others and otherwise. I have written here in the past that the hermitage is a place where the hermit battles with demons, especially those of her own heart, so that God might be God exhaustively in space and time. However, the "warrior" description is something I personally dislike because it sounds too much like prayer is something I do rather than something God does within me. Because my education is in systematic theology with a foundation in Scripture I have discerned a call to do some Scripture/theology in my parish so the answer to this question is yes, I feel called to do this as well as spiritual direction and (perhaps) Communion Services once a week in our parish chapel on our pastor's day off. I also feel called to do this blog and to write more systematically re eremitical life, especially under canon 603. What seems clear to me is that these limited instances of apostolic ministry are the consequences of life in eremitical solitude. They come from it and they lead me back to it so that my prayer, study, lectio divina, and the work I do in personal formation become a direct gift to others. Let me be clear though: they could not function in this way unless they were expressions of who I am in Christ -- and so they lead me back to the hermitage cell where God and I speak, love, laugh, dance, sing, and cry together for the sake of the salvation of the whole cosmos.

To whom or what is the hermit sent, then? The hermit is sent to her hermitage in order to be there for God's own sake, that God might be God. This is true so that others might know themselves as made for God and fulfilled by God alone. She is sent into the hermitage for God's own sake so that the true measure of her humanity may be achieved in Him  and she may serve as a model for others. She lives from God in the solitary Christ so that others may know who God is, who we each are, and what God wants us and our world to be about. For this reason it is particularly important that hermits not be caricatures or stereotypes, and that their lives not be focused merely on their own salvation or perfection. Will they be perfected? Yes, but only as they give themselves over to God for God's own sake and the sake of a world in desparate need of God and all that God makes possible and dreams for us.

An Apologia for Contemplative Prayer

[[Dear Sister, Since you are a contemplative who prays contemplatively I wondered if you could respond to the following arguments against contemplative prayer? 1) it is rooted in a pagan, Neo-Platonic notion of God; 2) the revelation of God in Scripture becomes secondary. Awakening is rooted in the study of Scripture, not in contemplative prayer with its goal of mystical experience and its emphasis on postures and techniques; 3) Jesus and the early church did not practice or preach it. Instead the Lord's Prayer teaches us to verbally express ourselves, and to use dynamic relational prayers. Contemplative prayer is a substitute for what is promised as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I got these from the following article: Three reasons I Refuse to Pray Contemplatively. It came up on a list serve I belong to. Thanks.]]

 Sure, I can give it a shot. I believe a large part of the reason the author of your article distrusts contemplative prayer is its linkage to the mystics of the Roman Catholic Church, however. He is also suspicious of silent prayer opting instead for verbal dialogue. He says that in the intro to his article before he lists the three reasons you cited (good job with those, by the way): [[Contemplative prayer, emphasizing "silence," has roots that go back to the mystics of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. The mystics were, in turn, profoundly influenced by Neo-Platonism, a pagan, mystical religion founded by Plotinus, a disciple of Plato.]]

While there is no doubt Platonism and neo-Platonism have been influential in Christianity, I don't see where the work of Plotinus (philosopher, pantheist or maybe panentheist), whom your author refers to at length, has any significant bearing on the practice of prayer including contemplative prayer. Moreover, even when there are similarities between mystics and some of the themes they might reflect in their prayer and Plotinus' thought, things like the transcendence of God, God's ineffableness (ultimate nature as Mystery which cannot be captured or adequately expressed in finite speech) or the capacity of one to know him to some extent in beauty or the good, this does not imply they have swallowed whole a pagan notion of God. It argues instead that we all do theology and approach similar notions of God even apart from the Christ Event. The fact is that Hellenism (especially Gnosticism) influenced Christianity in vast ways --- including both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Someone arguing a sola Scriptura position, as I think your author does in objections nos 2 and 3, needs to be aware of this influence among the sources of both Testaments. So, to the various objections to contemplative prayer cited in your question.

1) Contemplative prayer is rooted in a pagan notion of God. On the contrary, contemplative prayer, as I know it and practice it, is rooted in a profoundly Biblical notion of God. Often this prayer is occasioned by lectio with Scripture, often it leads back to Scripture at the same time. Its God is a transcendent God, yes, but S/he is also a God who grounds the whole of existence and resides in the human heart, constantly summoning each (and all) of us to completion in God. This is the God who sought a counterpart who would exhaustively and responsively incarnate his love in space and time, and who invites us each to share in the reality of such an incarnation achieved in Jesus. It is the God of Jesus Christ, the One Jesus called Abba. We meet (him) and know him --- and more, as Paul says, we are known by Him --- as we enter deeply into our own hearts and learn to open ourselves to Love-in-Act. As we enter into contemplative silence we drop our defenses, exercise greater degrees of trust and vulnerability, and learn to allow and listen profoundly for God's presence there. In short, we give ourselves to God for God's own purposes; we wait on and for God to reveal Godself on (his) own terms --- neither  more nor less than this.

2) These encounters with God involve pouring our hearts out to him in ways and to degrees which may begin with but eventually transcend speech. The purpose of contemplative prayer is to allow God "ownership" of our hearts and lives. We allow or consent to God's sovereignty; at least in part this is what it means to pray for the coming of God's Kingdom/Reign on earth as in heaven. It is emphatically not about mystical experiences --- though we may well experience God's love in ways which can be described as mystical --- ecstasy, the gift of tears, healing and wholeness, extraordinary joy, temporary detachment from bodily needs, inner locutions, images, and so forth. However, every genuine mystic and every spiritual director will caution about the dangers of expecting, much less depending on such experiences; they are never the focus in contemplative prayer. Still, some of us are naturally "visual" or "aural" in our insights and perceptions and may be predisposed to such experiences. Of themselves they are not a sign of maturity, much less giftedness, in prayer and should never be overestimated in importance --- especially for the contemplative whose focus is God.

Prayer posture is important but must not be misunderstood as manipulative or a matter of mere "technique". In fact, contemplative prayer requires that a person sit in a way which is at once relaxed and attentive; the criticism regarding a focus on postures is as unwarranted as that on mystical experiences since there is no such "focus". One simply learns the way/posture in which one is both relaxed and able to maintain attentiveness during a long prayer period --- just as we do whenever we do something important which requires our full attention. A couple of years ago, after some time of being unable to use my prayer bench because of an injury, I learned that sitting "seiza"  on a "zafu" (a sturdy cushion made for this) allows me to pray much better than sitting in a comfortable chair --- where, over time (i.e., during a prayer period), I tend to slouch and drowse and am uncomfortable and unfocused; others will be more relaxed and attentive in other postures --- though "seiza" is well-established for allowing both relaxation and attentiveness. In any case, please check out the following post, On Prayer Postures and Prayer Furniture, for more on this topic.

3) Relativizing the revelation of God in Scripture: God comes to us in many ways and is mediated to us through a world which is potentially sacramental at its core. We meet him in the Risen and Cosmic Christ who comes to us variously in Word and Sacrament, but who also can be met in one another and so many of the works of our hands that communicate truth, and goodness, and beauty, and meaning. Yes, the Scriptures are a privileged means of this mediation and they are central to God's revelation of Godself; they are normative and are a crucial way we measure and clarify other more partial revelations of God's power and presence. (Remember the NT itself points to other partial revelations of God than in Christ. cf  Heb 1:1-2;we recognize prophetic presences, speech, and actions today even apart from Scripture. So too do we find partial or fragmentary but real revelations of God's presence in other religions, the sciences, and so forth. We will measure and clarify these partial and more obscure revelations according to the Christ Event as revealed in the Scriptures, but we cannot simply deny them and still adequately honor the God of Creation or of the Risen and Cosmic Christ.)

Personal prayer (including contemplative prayer) is one of the ways God reveals Godself effectively and powerfully. (This is generally recognized by the author of the article you cite when he points to the dialogical or "relational" nature of prayer. I think it needs to be remembered however, that prayer is not relational because we bring ourselves into relationship with God during this time but because prayer is an expression of and opening ourselves to an already-existing relationship with and invitation by God. God is knocking at the door prompting us to open it in prayer. This is true whether our prayer is liturgical, silent, spoken, acted out, contemplative, etc. Prayer is always a graced and responsive reality, invited and empowered by the living God --- a responsive act which presumes an existing relationship, no matter how fragile or tenuous.

4) "Jesus didn't practice or preach it." It is impossible to prove a negative like this and affirming that Jesus never prayed silently and/or contemplatively simply goes beyond the evidence. On the other hand, we know he frequently went apart in the night; we know he poured himself out to his Abba in ways marked by significant inner (heartfelt) exertion and physical symptoms (think Gethsemane) --- all of which go beyond verbal expression; we know others slept while Jesus prayed to/with his Father. I don't see why any of this indicates Jesus -- whose intimacy with his Abba surely went beyond the limitations of words --- did not, much less that he could not have prayed silently and contemplatively as well as using the psalms and other common Jewish prayers. (Though I do not wish to follow this thread at this point, I should also note that the way Mary responded to God's activity in her own life was to "ponder (all these things) in her heart." I have always thought this  meant the whole of the Christ Event, not just Jesus' conception. Sounds like contemplative prayer to me!)

The single prayer Jesus taught his disciples is what we call "the Lord's Prayer" (LP) and generally speaking, it reprises the Jewish prayers Jesus was familiar with --- with the single exception of the invocation ("Abba" or "Pater") whose intimacy goes well beyond anything Jews would have been comfortable with. The Lord's prayer was known in a number of versions in the early Church (we have three now, those in Matt and Luke and the Didache) and so we have Greek translations and Aramaic as well. What we do not have is any indication we are meant merely to recite this prayer. Yes,  Jesus' instructions say, "When you pray, say (λεγετε). . .," but it is important to remember that prayer is the work of God in us and speech in such a context is more speech-act, a matter of saying and doing simultaneously, of making real in space and time, than it is merely a matter of recitation. (Whenever God speaks in the Scriptures things happen, things come to be or come to greater wholeness and perfection. To pray in the Name (i.e., the power, and presence) of God is never merely simply to recite words; it, in Christ, is to change reality, whether our own or that around us.)

Moreover, the LP differs in the versions we have, both in words and in number of petitions. If Jesus was giving us something he simply wanted us to recite (and accurately!) I don't think the early Church would have given us three different versions. And finally, the structure of the prayer corresponds to an outworking of Jesus' instructions, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God (part 1 of the prayer), and all things else will be given to you. (part 2 of the LP)" We pray by calling upon God by name, an act in which the entire prayer is already accomplished or "heard" (for what else can it mean for our prayer to be heard than to be brought into the intimacy accomplished and evidenced in invoking God by name? Invocation is a speech act which makes God's reign more fully real in history). Then we open (or continue opening) ourselves to God in more specific ways; we open all we are and hold within us to his holiness, his sovereignty or reign, and to his will. We seek the Kingdom first of all; we let God love us, empower us, lead, challenge, and enlighten us; we open ourselves to the coming of his Kingdom in and through our prayer and thus, to being remade in his Son's image and likeness. We seek the accomplishment of God's dreams and will, that is, to being made authentically, exhaustively, and truly human.

And, as the second half of the prayer indicates, with renewed mind and heart we now turn to the present moment without anxiety; we turn to the world of ordinary needs and challenges, the world of daily bread and the love we are called to today --- a love we can receive and rejoice in as gift but for that very reason never hoard; we turn to the world of sin, alienation, and forgiveness, of temptation and freedom, bondage and choice --- and we find we can now live more truly without fear (or the consequences of that fear) in this same world. In other words, the dialogue which goes on in the prayer is deeper than words; it occurs at the level of heart.

The dynamic is not that of speech only (though our words introduce us gradually into this dynamic) but of loving, being loved, and living in light of that love. In other words, when Jesus taught this prayer he was showing his disciples the essence of prayer, not simply giving us a text to recite; he was showing us what had priority in a Christian life devoted to allowing God's life, plans, and projects to come to fulfillment. The LP is more a paradigm of what a prayerful life rooted in the Gospel of God's Kingdom looks like and how it comes about than what prayer sounds like! This is because Jesus was more profoundly concerned with the prayer we would become than the prayers we would say; after all, as indispensable as prayers are and as it was for Jesus, prayer is always more about becoming the incarnation of God's own Word than it is about reciting prayers.

I sincerely hope this is helpful. Let me know if I have been unclear or raised other questions.

Parable of the Sower/Soils: Becoming Hearers of the Word

 On Friday we heard the parable of the sower/soils, at least the latter or "analogy portion" of the parable where Jesus explains the story's meaning. We all know it well; seed is sown broadcast-style over a wide swath of ground. Some falls on the path, some on rocky ground, some of thorny ground, and some on rich ground. Jesus makes analogies of the act of broadcasting seed on each of these types of ground. When seed falls on the path it represents the hearer of the Word who is without understanding and the Word sown in his/her heart is stolen away by "the Evil One"; when seed falls on rocky ground it represents the person who receives the Word with joy and grace, but who is "without root" (or fails to allow the Word to take root within her) and falls away from life in and from the Word. When seed falls on thorny ground we are given a picture of the person who hears the Word, allows it to take root, but then allows anxiety and a yearning for other forms of riches to choke the life of the word out; and finally Jesus portrays the person in whom the Word takes root and bears an enormously rich harvest, 30, 60, 100 fold.

In each image Jesus defines the human person as a hearer of the Word of God. Moreover he points out that the nature of one's personhood is a reflection of the priority, attention, and care given to this Word and to the human heart which receives it. To understand the parable is to allow oneself to "stand under" the promise and challenge of the Word of God --- to allow oneself to be literally inspired by it --- shaped, consoled, healed, and impelled by the Word of Love and mercy it always is. Parables are not understood in the way a mathematical or other problem might be; they are not understood even in the way some texts are. We do not understand them when we analyze them and determine what they say; we understand them when we enter into the story and become part of it --- when we allow it to make a new sense of our lives while calling and empowering us to embrace this with our whole heart and mind.

Several images came to mind when reflecting on this reading. For instance, I remembered a time several years ago my pastor asked the adults present in a weekday Mass to name their favorite Scripture story or share their favorite Scripture verse with students from our school who were attending Mass with us that day. Many of us quoted a verse that was personally significant. One after the other, verse after verse, people revealed themselves as "hearers of the Word" and alluded to the deep story of their own lives in relationship with God in Christ which was, to some extent, captured or mirrored in the verse they shared. Religious do this with the motto they choose for their rings, for instance. My own is, "God's power is perfected in weakness." It is the short version of Paul's, "My grace is sufficient for you; my power is perfected in weakness." Almost every moment or mood of my life as well as every dream and goal which shape my life and vocation is captured in this verse from 2 Corinthians.

My director/delegate recounts two Scriptures which have served similarly in her own life. At profession she heard, "I have raised you up to show my power through you"; when she began a retreat ministry which allowed her to practice PRH, a methodical approach to personal healing and growth, the first liturgy at the retreat center used a passage from Deuteronomy 31. Sister Marietta found herself personally addressed in the line where Moses commissions Joshua: "You must put them in possession of their heritage." In this context heritage meant that deep Self, that sacred well of potentiality which is both the eternal gift of God and our own truest reality. It is the Word of God spoken within us, the sacred "name" God calls us to embody as no one else can or will.  Throughout our lives, whether through choices we make or circumstances that befall us, our ability to attend to, embrace, and embody this heritage can be wounded and crippled. As a result our hearts will contain tamped down pathways, rocky and thorn-choked ground as well as deep layers of rich soil. But the injury done over the years can also be healed and some forms of pastoral ministry and the work associated with it as well as prayer, lectio divina, etc can greatly assist in this. Through these we can become the truly free persons we are called to be, unique articulations of the Word of God.

As I reflected on the parable this last week and thought on what it would mean to become the rich soil in which the Word of God comes to fruition I remembered the last scene from Ray Bradbury's short novel, Fahrenheit 451. In this dystopia where lives are empty and suicide is common, books are forbidden. Firemen no longer put out house fires; they locate houses in which owners have hidden books and douse them with kerosene, books and all, and set them ablaze. Sometimes they burn the owners as well. Montag, a fireman, steals some books and fails to turn them in. One of these is a Bible. Eventually Montag himself becomes the target of the government and the fire department comes to burn his house and the books hidden there; Montag is to be killed by lethal injection. But he escapes and runs to the forests outside the city. There he meets communities of human beings who have also escaped the empty, fruitless lives so common in that time.

Each member of these communities has given themselves over to a work of literature, and in the last scene we see an image of persons embodying a particular literary opus and "handing on" these works to others who will follow them in a similar embodiment. The work involved may be a book or chapter of a book, a passage or classic poem. If one wants to "read" Dante, or a play of Shakespeare, or the Gospel of Mark, for instance, one is sent to a particular person who will recite it for them -- as many times as one needs. Montag finds his own life of struggle, searching, loss and gain, reflected in Ecclesiastes: "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." As in Fahrenheit 451, or the other examples cited above, the parable of the sower/soils challenges each of us to allow the Word of God to shape and condition us completely or exhaustively. It asks each of us to become an embodiment of that same Word. We are not merely to listen to or recite a piece of Scripture, but to give ourselves over to the Word of God and in some way to become its living presence in our world. May God bring to completion the work (He) has begun in each of us!

The Word Made Flesh, Chanticleer and Biebl's Ave Maria

This Saturday evening a friend and I attended a Chanticleer Christmas concert in San Francisco at St Ignatius Church. The program included Biebl's Ave Maria --- something which has become expected, and would be seriously missed were Chanticleer to omit it from the program. The first year I heard this I was surprised by it and even a little disappointed; I was expecting Schubert or Bach-Gounod. We are resistant to the new sometimes. But now, I, like my friend, am ordinarily brought to tears by Chanticleer's rendition of this version of the Angelus/Ave Maria.

Some will remember my having quoted Dom Robert Hale, OSB Cam, when I wrote about God shaping and sustaining us "like a singer sustains a note." I have spoken of our vocations to become true counterparts of God, language events which are expressions of the eternal and loving Word and breath of God, responses to God which bring creation to articulateness, and in the past I have spoken of human being summoned out of muteness to become canticles of joy and hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. In all of these ways and others I have tried to provide Scriptural and theological images of the ways we become our truest selves in the power and powerful presence of God, images part of what is celebrated at Christmas and especially in the stories we hear throughout this last week of Advent.

In today's Gospel we hear the story of  the angel greeting Mary and describing her as "full of grace;" it is also an account of Jesus' conception by the power of that same Spirit. In other words Mary is a woman of prayer in whom the breath of God moves freely and who, because of that, will speak her "fiat" to become pregnant with the One who will become God's counterpart in an exhaustive and definitive sense. Mary is indeed the canticle created when God is allowed to shape and sustain her as a singer does a note --- an image of Mary we celebrate especially in tomorrow's Gospel. The dialogue between Mary and God as well as our own subsequent reflection on and praise of this great mystery is captured in Biebl's marvelous rendition of the Angelus. I hope you enjoy it.