So what IS a Cloistered Heart?

We try to put a "what is this?" post here from time to time, a brief look at the basic cloistered heart "analogy" for anyone wondering what this blog is about.

It's time to do this again! The following is from our archives:

The "Cloistered Heart" is basically an analogy in which our lives can be seen as "monasteries," places where God is loved and lived for and served.  

Our call is to be in the world but not of the world.   This is not a new or different idea; rather, it is an emphasizing, a kind of "underlining," of every Christian's call.  The uniqueness of this emphasis is in its monastic imagery. 

The word "cloister" speaks of total consecration.  Those who enter a traditional physical cloister make a tangible break from the world.  Compromise does not fit well in a cloister, nor does lukewarmness, nor does complacency.  The cloistered life is absolute. 

Christians living in the midst of the world are also called to live for God.  But for us, the break is not so clean. The world is persistent in its tugs on the heart trying to live for God.  We need support in our struggles to surrender our lives to God and to resist the world's allurements.  This is where the imagery of the cloistered heart can be of help. "If the cloister is in a man's heart, it is immaterial whether the building is actually there.  The cloister in a man's heart means only this:  God and the soul."  (from Warriors of God by Walter Nigg, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1959, p. 13)

Our cloister is not made of bricks and stones, but of God's holy will in which we can choose to live.  The will of God can form for us a "cloister grille," through which we may view and respond to all people and all circumstances around us.

"The heart is the dwelling place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place ‘to which I withdraw.’  The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully.  The heart is the place of decision..“  (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 2563) 

"Thank God, there still remains one sanctuary, the sacredness of which no earthly power may violate… it is the sanctuary of the human heart.  It needs no fixed place for its confines, no stated time for the opening of its gates, no particular hour of silence for its prayer.  A thought, a word, a moment of reflection, and by faith and by love, the soul is within the blessed refuge, and the gates are closed on the confusion of life with all its noise and tumult.  It is secure against the bitterness and the pain of persecution, or hardship or trial, or hurt of body, or wound of earthly pride, or failure of worldly ambition, for there she is inviolable, sacred, impregnable in the fortress of her own spirit.  ‘Entering into solitude,’ we sometimes call the seeking of this sanctuary.  But it is not entering into a lonely solitude.  It is hearkening to the alluring accents and appeal of a Voice that will never, in time, be stilled, but will ever sound gently in the hearing of them that love: ‘come apart with Me and rest awhile!” (from The Living Pyx of Jesus, compiled by a Religious, Pelligrini and Co, Australia, 1941, p.101) 

“Most beautiful of creatures, who desires so ardently to know the dwelling place of your Beloved in order to seek Him and be united with Him, you are yourself the refuge where He takes shelter, the dwelling place in which He hides Himself.  Your Beloved, your Treasure, your one Hope is so close to you as to live within you." (St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle)

“You are the temple of the living God.” (2 Corinthians 6:16)

"We may well tremble to think what sanctuaries we are, when the Blessed Sacrament is within us."  (Frederick William Faber)  




Text not in quotes © 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.  Unauthorized use of this material without permission from blog owner is prohibited.  thecloisteredheart.org   

E- mail: thecloisteredheart [at] gmail [dot] com.

And In the Wind

There is change in the air as a storm approaches.  The wind picks up, clouds gather, there may be a distant clap of thunder.  As lightning flashes around us, we race for shelter.

Monastery grounds and walls are as subject to storms as those of any other building.  They get slapped with rain, pelted with sleet.  Inhabitants of the cloister might find themselves standing at a window looking out, maybe with a touch of concern.  What are those chunks of hail doing to the roof?  Are the windows secure against the wind?  

The monastery of my life is vulnerable, too.  I face storms, at times, of great magnitude.  Sickness, sudden disaster, an unnerving news report.  It helps me then to remember that I’m in the strongest cloister possible – the cloister of God’s loving embrace.  Everything that touches me must first come through His hands, through His “permissive will.”  I can do as St. Francis de Sales advised, and say amid my contradictions: “this is the very road to heaven.  I see the door, and I am certain the storms cannot prevent us from getting there.”

"The Name of the Lord is a strong tower; the just man runs to it and is safe.”  (Proverbs 18:10)

“Happy is the soul established in God ... The winds of the storm are powerless to shake her.” (St. Jane de Chantal)

"When you hear about wars and threats of war, do not yield to panic.  Such things are bound to happen, but this is not the end.  Nation will rise against nation, one kingdom against another.  There will be earthquakes in various places and there will be famine.  This is but the onset of labor.  Be constantly on your guard.... because of My Name, you will be hated by everyone.  Nonetheless, the man who holds out till the end is the one who will come through safe."  (Mark 13:5-13)

"O Jesus, I am locking myself in Your most merciful heart as in a fortress, impregnable against the missiles of my enemies.” (St. Faustina Kowalska, Diary, #1535)

The cloistered heart is a place of refuge, no matter where I happen to be. A portable fortress, a place inviolate, where I can remain with Jesus in the midst of storms, traffic jams, persecutions, illnesses, fires, floods. It is an appealing idea. It is also (this being most important) theologically sound. "The heart is the dwelling place where I am, where I live... the heart is the place 'to which I withdraw.'  The heart is our hidden center,  beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #2563)

The cloistered heart is the heart of David dancing before the ark; of Mesach, Shadrach and Abednego in the fiery furnace; of Paul in prison, Daniel in the lions’ den, John on Patmos, Peter in chains.  The world is not safe from evil – even the body isn’t safe from harm – but within the cloistered heart there is refuge.

My heart, as long as He is in it, is safe.

(The above is a combined repost from our archives)

The Cloistered Heart

"The heart is the dwelling place where I am, where I live ... the heart is the place 'to which I withdraw.' The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully." 

Catechism of the Catholic Church #2563

Painting at bottom: Vlaho Bukovac

Hold Onto the Map

'There is always hope for the man who knows that he is doing wrong, 

but there is no hope for the man who is doing wrong and calls the wrong right. 

The Catholic gets off the road like anyone else, but he never throws away the map.'

Fulton J. Sheen, from the Wartime Prayer Book

Our map can be found here or here. And here or here.

What I Did Not Miss

I was eager for prayer time yesterday. Newly aware of what I might be missing when I don't take such time, I'd enthusiastically scheduled a block of minutes for total, uninterrupted concentration on God. I normally try to do this on a daily basis, but the timing of that can be haphazard, and thus can get pushed later and later on any given day. Yesterday, however, I was ready and waiting. I had even dug through my bookshelves for an unused journal (I have several waiting in the wings) in order to make notes of What I Did Not Miss.

I sat with a list of suggestions on how to pray with Scripture (shared in our last post, from the writings of 'A Religious'), and opened my Bible to a reading from the Gospel of Luke. I read a few lines slowly, and waited. I read the lines again, and waited. I asked Jesus what He wanted to reveal to me, and I waited. 'Keep on doing this until the words begin to live,' the anonymous Religious had suggested. So I did.

The words I read were good words, holy words, straight-from-the-written-Word-of-God-words, and I received them with gratitude. I thanked God for the words, and for His written word, and for gifts I was aware of and gifts I didn't know I was receiving. But did the words live? From my perspective, that did not seem to be the case.

However, from the perspective of the way things really ARE, the words were alive indeed - and I knew that. 'For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.' (Matthew 4:12)

Did I feel any different because of the words I had read, or because of the prayers I prayed as a result of reading them? No, I cannot say that I did. Is the word of God living and active even when I do not feel it?  Yes, absolutely.

Perhaps it can be compared to an unborn baby. Such a one lives within its mother for months before its movements can be felt. Mommy goes through her days unaware of the leaps, stretches, yawns, kicks and punches of the active person living inside her. Baby's life does not depend upon Mommy's constant awareness of it. Baby is alive, and that is simply an objective fact.

God's word is alive, and that is a objective fact. Not everyone accepts it as fact, but that doesn't make it any less true. God has said it. 'The Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord's Body.... In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet His children, and talks with them.' (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 103-104)

I am happy to report that in my concentrated prayer time today, I felt words of Scripture stirring and leaping in my heart and mind. I had some sense of the Father coming to meet me, His child. But it's interesting. That is not the experience I've felt drawn to report on here.

I would rather share my intense gratitude for the gifts of yesterday's prayer. The gift of knowing, maybe in a deeper way, that God's word IS living and active. The gift of knowing that God has gifts for me, whether or not I see or hear or feel them. The gift of acceptance of whatever God wants to give me, or ask of me, or do with me, forever.

How glad I am that I took that block of time to be with God.

There were gifts, solid gifts. I would hate to have missed them.

© Nancy Shuman
thecloisteredheart.org      

Painting: Robert Lewis Reid

Who Know Their Creed So Well

     'I want a laity... who know their religion, who enter into it, 
     who know just where they stand, 
     who know what they hold and what they do not, 
     who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it,
     who know so much of history that they can defend it. 
     I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity. 
     I wish (them) to enlarge (their) knowledge, to cultivate reason, 
     to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, 
     to learn to view things as they are,

     to understand how faith and reason stand to each other,

     and what are the bases and principles of Catholicism.' 

     Blessed John Henry Newman

      Painting: Peter Paul Rubens, The Four Evangelists

Resources to form us as holy laity:

Bible Online

Official Catholic Catechism Online 

The Steady Gleam

"In the formation of conscience, the Word of God is the light for our path; we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice."  (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1785) 

"Learn to fix the eye of faith on the divine word of the Holy Scriptures as on 'a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the day-star arises in our hearts' " (St. Augustine) 

"All the lights of this world, radiant in their brilliance and wealth and flashing splendour, cannot compare with the pure, steady gleam of Faith. No earthly light can show us God. No blaze from the fires of this world can light up the mysteries of life, or reveal Eternal Truths. No! It is the fixed, constant, and unchanging Ray of Faith that turns darkness into day, and exchanges doubt for certainty. Faith gives not only light, but understanding and acute vision also. All that we can see, we know was made from invisible things. 'Faith pierces the visible and gives a glimpse of the Invisible.' (from The Living Pyx of Jesus by A Religious, Pellegrini, Australia, 1941,  p.120)

   

Photo: Pixabay

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? (a repost)

The following is a slightly edited re-post from eight months ago: 

Recently I read something touting a "politically correct" (but unmistakably warned against in Scripture) lifestyle as being something Jesus would applaud. 

I immediately thought:  "Oh, really?"  

Just who, I asked, is this Jesus of whom the writer is speaking?  It's definitely not the Jesus quoted and taught about in Scripture and 2,000 years of the Church.  The real Christ clearly taught against what the author was endorsing.

This is extremely important.  Nothing in our lives could be more important.  For those of us who want to respond to the world through the "grillwork" of God's will, a knowledge of the real Jesus is critical. 

If I am going to see the world through Scripture and the teachings of the Church, I must have a working knowledge of what these are.  I cannot make them up for myself.  And certainly I can't invent my own jesus, one who will approve of everything I do.. even sin.  The real Jesus loves me; He genuinely loves me.  He cares enough about me to correct my missteps.  

The real Jesus does not overlook the cliffs I'm blindly frolicking about on. He is not afraid of warning me about them lest He interrupt my fun.  Because He loves me, He wants to protect me from the enemy of my soul

"We can make the mistake of trying to make hard truths so palatable," writes Dan Burke at Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction, "that we end up presenting half-truths or even worse, untruths (implied or actual).... Yes, we can and must say “come as you are”; but we must also proclaim that the God of Love who meets us where we are, loves us too much to leave us there.  He calls us to union with Him where we will find the Truth that sets us free to know and live an abundant life in Him."

How do I get to know the real Jesus?

Ah, we have such a gift in the Official Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is clearly laid out and indexed.  In this treasured resource, I can find out what the Church actually teaches on a specific subject.  The Catechism is accessible, clear, and easy to understand. 

Most importantly, I get to know the Real Jesus proclaimed in Scripture. For those who aren't accustomed to reading the Bible, I suggest beginning with the Gospel of John.... reading straight through, taking it slowly and prayerfully (definitely prayerfully).  Matthew, Mark and Luke reveal more and more of Him. And in the epistles, I learn what St. Paul and the other writers teach about living totally (not just partly) for Christ. 

"When someone comes preaching another Jesus than the One we preached, or when you receive a different spirit than the one you have received, or a gospel other than the one you accepted, you seem to endure it quite well."  (2 Corinthians 11:4)

May such a thing never be said of us.


Painting:  Carl Heinrich Bloch, Jesus Tempted

To See or Not to See. The Choice is Mine.

I was sixteen when I learned that trees had individual leaves; at least, ones visible from more than a few feet away. I literally gasped in wonder when I put on my first pair of glasses and watched wide blobs of green become defined, distinct, individual shapes that waved and fluttered in the wind.  Having been nearsighted since childhood, I'd grown up unaware that the world was anything other than one huge, smeary blur.  

In an instant my faulty perception changed, and suddenly houses had windows, teachers had faces, and almost everyone I knew had strands of hair. My whole way of seeing was altered. I was able to see things as they really were - not merely as I’d imagined them.

In spite of such sudden clarity, however, I did not wear my new glasses regularly.  Having glimpsed the marvels of clocks with numbers and billboards with words, I usually found myself choosing the same old blurry life I’d become accustomed to over the years.  Why?

Mostly because I was concerned with “what people would think.” Allowing myself to be seen in spectacles?  It wasn't a pleasant prospect. I let vanity and self-concern keep me from interacting with life as it really was.

In addition, some part of me was simply comfortable with the same old blur. “The blur” was all I'd known. To realize that things were not actually as I’d perceived them was an adjustment. 

Besides: if I saw the time on a clock, I would have no excuse if I were late for class. If I could read what Mr. Miller wrote on the blackboard, my conscience might nudge me to tackle an Algebra problem. In a very real way, I didn't want to handle too much reality, too fast. 

Learning to see as God wants us to see is, in effect, like putting on a pair of glasses. The lenses of Scripture and Church teaching bring into focus the reality of things as they are.  They correct misconceptions we might have held, perhaps for so many years that we hadn't realized they even were misconceptions.  They challenge us to "not worry"… "love your enemies"…. "sin no more"...."do not lay up for yourselves an earthly treasure"……

I find myself faced with a choice as I write this. Will I put on the lenses God has prescribed for me..... or not? Maybe I'm willing to look at a few things through them, but what about some of those "tougher" issues. 

Am I so comfortable with the same old blurry way of looking at things that I find Our Lord’s words threatening?  

Am I so concerned about “what people think” that I'm reluctant to be seen as someone who takes Scripture and Church teaching seriously?

I can look at life as the secular world tells me to, or I can use the prescription God has clearly written out for me. 

Rx: "Grille Eyes."  The corrective lenses of Scripture and the teachings of the Church.  

To see or not to see. The choice is mine.

Georgios Jakobides painting, digitally altered

The Church Speaks of Our Enclosure

"In the formation of conscience,
the Word of God 
is the light for our path; 
we must assimilate it 
in faith and prayer 
and put it into practice." 

Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1785










Painting:  El Greco, A Boy Blowing on an Ember to Light a Candle






To look more into our enclosure, click this line

The Church Speaks: The Dwelling Place

"The heart is 
the dwelling place 
where I am, 
where I live; 
according to 
the Semitic or 
Biblical expression, 
the heart is the place
'to which I withdraw.'  
The heart is 
our hidden center, 
beyond the grasp 
of our reason 
and of others; 
only 
the Spirit of God 
can fathom 
the human heart 
and know it fully.  
The heart is 
the place
of decision.." 

Catechism
of the Catholic Church # 2563 

Georges de la Tour painting





 

To continue the topic of spiritual monasticism, click this line

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

Recently I read something touting a "politically correct" (but warned against in Scripture) lifestyle as being something Jesus would applaud. 

I immediately thought:  "Oh, really?"  

Just who, I asked, is this Jesus of whom the writer is speaking?  It's definitely not the Jesus quoted and taught about in Scripture and 2,000 years of the Church.  The real Christ clearly taught against what the author was endorsing.

This is extremely important.  Nothing in our lives could be more important.  For those of us who want to respond to the world through the "grillwork" of God's will, a knowledge of the real Jesus is critical. 

If I am going to see the world through Scripture and the teachings of the Church, I must have a working knowledge of what these are.  I cannot make them up for myself.  And certainly I can't invent my own jesus, one who will approve of everything I do.. even sin.  The real Jesus loves me; He genuinely loves me.  He cares enough about me to correct my missteps.  He doesn't overlook the cliffs I'm blindly frolicking about on; He's not afraid of warning me about them lest He interrupt my fun.  He is upset when I (often unknowingly)  entertain temptations coming from the enemy of my soul

"We can make the mistake of trying to make hard truths so palatable," writes Dan Burke at Roman Catholic Spiritual Direction, "that we end up presenting half-truths or even worse, untruths (implied or actual).... Yes, we can and must say “come as you are”; but we must also proclaim that the God of Love who meets us where we are, loves us too much to leave us there.  He calls us to union with Him where we will find the Truth that sets us free to know and live an abundant life in Him."

How do I get to know the real Jesus?

I open Scripture and read about Him.

For those who aren't accustomed to doing this, I suggest beginning with the Gospel of John.... reading straight through, taking it slowly and prayerfully (definitely prayerfully).

And however does a layperson get to know the teachings of the church?  Ah, we have such a gift in the Official Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is clearly laid out and indexed.  I don't read it straight through - but when I want to look up what the Church teaches on a subject, I check the index.  It is accessible, clear, and easy to understand.  

"When someone comes preaching another Jesus than the One we preached, or when you receive a different spirit than the one you have received, or a gospel other than the one you accepted, you seem to endure it quite well."  (2 Corinthians 11:4)

May such a thing never be said of us.


Painting:  Carl Heinrich Bloch, Jesus Tempted 

The Cloistered Heart

'The heart is
the dwelling-place
where I am,
where I live;

'according to the Semitic
or Biblical expression,
the heart is the place
to which I withdraw.

'The heart is our hidden center,
beyond the grasp of our reason
and of others;

'only the Spirit of God
can fathom the human heart
and know it fully.

'The heart is the place of decision,
deeper than our psychic drives.

'It is the place of truth,
where we choose life or death.

'It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation;

'it is the place of covenant.'

Catechism of the Catholic Church #2563


Painting:  Philippe de Champaigne, St. Augustine (detail)

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