Embracing the Mass

 

"They recounted what had happened to them on the road, and how they had come to know Him in the breaking of the bread."  (Luke 24:35)

Mass is the highlight of the monastic day. The other prayers prepare for it, revolve around it, highlight and underscore it... and carry its themes into every other part of the afternoon and evening. This is reasonable, logical, for "The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life...  In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1324 and 1327)

Before the great Wonder of the Eucharist, of Jesus with us in Flesh and Blood, I am, frankly, speechless. So I look to one more eloquent than I as I pass along these words: 

"We must continually remind ourselves that the greatest need in the world today is to centre our lives more and more in the oblational aspect of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; for today, when the whole world is galloping away from the very shadow of the Cross, we must embrace it and cling to it ever more firmly, in union with Jesus Christ....We should never come to Holy Mass without preparation, and it is for this reason that, in Religious Houses, the Community Mass is celebrated after the Spiritual Exercises of the morning. Of all the works of the Sacred Heart here below, Holy Mass together with Holy Communion is the Masterpiece." 

(from The Living Pyx of Jesus by 'A Religious,' Pelligrini, 1941, p. 443)

Can I get to Mass today? If so, I ask for the grace of opened eyes. Eyes that can truly see Him in the breaking of the Bread. 

But perhaps I am limited - maybe by family needs, illness, work, disability. What then? I can at least make a spiritual communion, perhaps using words like these: 

"My Jesus, I believe You are truly present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I desire to possess You within my soul. Since I am unable now to receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there, and I unite myself wholly to You; never permit me to be separated from You." 

(St. Alphonsus)

Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org    

  

Posted by © Nancy Shuman at 11:49 PM 

*This is a repost from the archives of 8/28/12.

How are we Living Monasticism of the Heart?

"I had this idea that prayer, holiness, and the spiritual life were for the religious vocation and hidden behind high, thick brick walls.  I longed to find a crack in that wall so I could have just a tiny taste of the spiritual life I once knew.  Then the Holy Spirit brought the Cloistered Heart to me.  The Cloistered Heart allowed me to squeeze through a tiny crack in that big brick wall.  I long for the fullness of all of God's promises for those who love Him to the heights.  And if that sounds presumptive, then so be it, because I know that it is meant for us all.  Not just the Religious or the saints, but for all......"(from a letter by our friend Rose)

"Some people might think it contradictory to speak of 'contemplative' in the same sentence as 'mother of a very large family.'  But it is the contemplative spirit that has helped me survive the chaos that is natural when raising a number of children.... The cloister in my heart is a place of refuge.  It is a place where I can retreat from the world no matter where I am; in the middle of a crowded mall, or in a busy grocery store, or in my own kitchen." (Rose)

Painting:  Gustav Wentzel Frokost, in US public domain due to age        

 thecloisteredheart.org                         



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St. Paul of the Cross's Monastic Heart

 

'Build an oratory within yourself, and there have Jesus on the altar of your heart. Speak to Him often while you are doing your work.  Rest tranquilly in the loving Heart of our dear Savior; do not lose peace, even though the world turn upside down.'

'Faith tells us that our heart is a Sanctuary, because it is the Temple of God, the dwelling-place of the Holy Trinity.  Let us often visit this Sanctuary, and see that the lamps are alight - that is to say, Faith, Hope and Charity - and frequently stir up our faith when we are studying, working, or eating, when we go to bed, and when we rise, and make aspirations to God.'

St. Paul of the Cross

                                                            Painting:  Evert Toert Pieters Näheri,in US public domain due to age                   


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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





 

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Scripture Speaks: Who is Within Us

"Here I stand, knocking at the door.  If anyone hears Me calling and opens the door, I will enter his house and have supper with Him, and He with Me."  (Revelation 4:20)

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

"Anyone who loves Me will be true to My word, and My Father will love him; We will come to him, and make Our dwelling place with him."  (John 14:22; Jesus speaking)

"I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to guard them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, any more than I am of the world."  (John 17:15-16; Jesus speaking)

"the Spirit of God dwells in you."  (Romans 8:9)



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This post is part of our "New Cloistered Adventure."  For an explanation of what that means, click this line.

Spiritual Monasticism

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.  This is where the imagery of the cloistered heart can sometimes 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)

"Most people cannot leave the world in a bodily sense, but every follower of Christ who is serious

about genuine growth must leave the spirit of the world."  (Thomas Dubay SM, Fire Within, Ignatius Press, 1989, p. 81)

 "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)  

I shared the following video only a few months ago, but I am re-posting it because
(1) I think it fits
(2) for me it reveals the absolutely unwordable essence of The Cloistered Heart.

I would go so far as to say that this video captures the Cloistered Heart exactly as I first knew it, as I have always felt it in the depths of my spirit.

A writing teacher once said:  "poetry shows; it does not tell."

This video, according to those guidelines, is poetry of the Cloistered Heart.

Come and see.




 

Text not in quotes © 2014 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.  thecloisteredheart.org   

Photo:  Liverpool Skyline, public domain
Painting:  Caravaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew, in US public domain due to age


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The Call to Monasticism

Cloistered nuns and monks do not settle for halfway commitments and compromised yeses.  They eat, sleep, dress, work, play, sing, read, serve, breathe for God.  "The Christian life is nothing else but Christ," writes Dom Hubert Van Zeller.  "The monastic life is nothing else but Christ.  The requirements for the Christian and for the monk are in substance the same; the difference lies only in the particular kind of stress that is given to them.  The Church exists so that souls should lead the life of Christ; the monastery exists for the same purpose.  Whether it is union with Him in the world or in the cloister, it is union that is the soul's purpose." (Dom Hubert Van Zeller, the Yoke of Divine Love, Templegate, 1957, p. 182)  

"Monastic life is nothing else, no more and no less, than a Christian life whose Christianity has penetrated every part of it.  ((Louis Bouyer of the Oratory, The Meaning of the Monastic Life, PJ Kenedy and Sons, NY 1950, p. 13)

"The monk is precisely the Christian who has recognized in Christ 'the way, the truth, the life' and who intends to act logically over this discovery, a discovery of such a nature that it should not leave any of those who have made it tepid or indifferent."  (Bouyer p. 68)  

"The monk, like the seer of the Apocalypse, has seen a door opened in heaven... from now on, everything resolves itself into passing through that door, into plunging into the vision which it opens on to the invisible."  (Bouyer, p. 68)

"If he is a true monk, what he is seeking cannot be some THING.  It is some ONE."  (Bouyer, p. 7)

Monks, wrote Etienne Gilson, are those who "by preaching and by example, maintain the full spirit of the Gospel in a world unable to bear it."  (quoted in Cistercian Contemplatives, Monks of the Strict Observance, 1947, p. 5)

"The earliest monasticism was directed to the tendency in the church to compromise with the world, to water down the strong wine of the Gospels to suit the vulgar taste...  Monasticism, in its development, was unmistakably on the defensive against a worldly church"  (Walter Nigg, Warriors of God, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1959, pp. 80-81)
  

"The fundamental question: ' does he really seek God.'  Let us state the fact without beating about the bush:  a monastic institute which ceased to put this question to its postulants, or which inserted some different question in its place, would cease ipso facto to have any right to the name monastic.  The search, the true search, in which the whole of one's being is engaged, is not for some thing but for some One:  it is the search for God.  That is the beginning and end of monasticism.  If it is to be truly God which we seek, we have to seek him as a Person."  (The Meaning of the Monastic Life, Lois Bouyer of the Oratory, PJ Kenedy and Sons, NY, 1950,p. 8) 

Next time:  we will look at how the call to physical monasticism might resonate in our own hearts, and how we may be able to respond to it in the midst of our families and workplaces. 

Does anything in the above tug at my heart, even though I am not called to monastic life?


To read about Spiritual Monasticism, click this line



Painting of monk by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn