Yes. God Really Said.

As we continue to revisit the very basics of the cloistered heart analogy, I'm reminded that our "call" is that of every Christian.  The analogy we use is simply a way of helping us envision it.

Each of us is called to live according to the will of God.  Our Creator placed us on this earth and gave us instructions on how to live (Genesis 2:16-17).  It was pretty simple, really, and absolutely do-able.  God said, in essence: here is all you will ever need.  A splendid bounty.  You don't even have to work for it.  All I ask is that you trust Me, trust that I know what's best for you, and just do not eat of that one single solitary tree. 

Ooops.

All these millenia later, we still face the same basic choice.  Because of that first ooops, we were not born into Eden - but thanks to Our Savior, we do have an eternal garden of glory awaiting us. And the way I look at it, we also have an opportunity to live, even on earth, in the best location possible.  A place from which we can look with anticipation toward our eternal Home.  A place in which we can be assured that God is ordering our circumstances (even when we see them as painful or murky) toward nothing but good.

Of course, I'm speaking of the will of God, the boundaries of which are mapped out for us in His Word and through His Church. 

Yes, this is very basic stuff.  But oh, how easy it is to lose sight of basics!  Which is why I'm grateful for the imagery of enclosure, and of grillwork, because these help me as I try to practice the basics day by day.

In circumstance after circumstance, we are presented with the question:  "Did God really say?"  This threads through our culture, often as a general assumption that He said no such things.  "In this enlightened, scientific, sophisticated age, do you mean to tell me you think all that stuff in the Bible is really true?!  You think God really said?  Why don't you just open your eyes and judge for yourself!?"

"The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom..."  (Genesis 3:6)

The woman saw.  The woman judged.  She could see no reason not to eat from that particular tree except for one little detail, surely a small matter that could be overlooked. 

God said.  

© 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
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Through the Grille Again

As we "revisit" the basics of cloistered heart analogies, we immediately come face to face with the grille.  Again I am reposting (and editing) something written earlier, because this is all very basic. 

The grille is, in the analogy of the cloistered heart, the important symbol. It is a place of separation and, just as importantly, it is a place of encounter.  It is only through a grille that some cloistered individuals (in a number of communities) connect with the world.

And the truth is:  every human being has been given, by God, a way to connect with the world.  A way to see situations correctly; a way to interact with others appropriately.

God invites each one of us to view and respond to every person and every circumstance through His will.

We do not have to guess what that will is.  God has revealed it to us.  Scripture and the authentic teachings of the Church show us God's will.  These make up the bars of our grille. 

Am I facing a hardship?  I can face it through the grille.  

"God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him…”  (Romans 8:28). 

"God keeps his promise. He will not let you be tested beyond your strength.  Along with the test he will give you a way out of it so that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13) 

Do I want to know how I'm to treat others?  I can choose to interact with them through the grille.  

"Do not... speak ill of one another."  (James 4:11)

"Love is patient, love is kind.  Love is not jealous, it does not put on airs, it is not snobbish.  Love is never rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not prone to anger; neither does it brood over injuries.  Love does not rejoice in what is wrong but rejoices with the truth."  (1 Corinthians 13:4-6) 

Indeed, it's all very basic.  My challenge is:  will I face the persons and situations before me today as God asks - or not? 

"We do not fix our gaze on what is seen but on what is unseen…” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

 
© 2011 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
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Back in Another Form

 

"Because spiritual perception is dulled by the pressures of the world, the world, with all its natural excellences as well as with all its false sanctions and ephemeral attractions, must give place to the spirit... 

"The trouble with renouncing the world is that it comes back in another form.  You bar the window of your cell against it, and it comes up through the boards of the floor."  

                                  Dom Hubert Van Zeller, the Yoke of Divine Love, Templegate, 1957, p. 29




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Painting:  Joseph DeCamp, The Window Blind, in US public domain

We Wake up to Find...

"We... afraid of being left behind in contemporary thought, assent too readily to the conclusions of a humanist and materialist society...

"The movement of the world slides over our preference for spiritual things, and we wake up to find that we have accepted earthly things at the world's valuation.  

"It is only the wisdom of the Spirit that can show up the more hidden errors contained in the world's propaganda, and to possess our share of this wisdom, we have to pray.  

"Prayer alone assures both the light to see and the strength to resist."

(Dom Hubert Van Zeller, the Yoke of Divine Love, Templegate, 1957, p.  36)

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ALL

The thing that draws me most about monasticism is its absolute totality.  The person entering such a life gives ALL.   

As I've written before, a potential postulant does not  stick her head inside the enclosure and leave her arms and legs dangling outside.  It just won't work.

Yet how often do I give God "only so much," holding little corners of my life in reserve for myself? 

I might happily obey some of His commandments while ignoring a few that are, well..  inconvenient.  I can easily trust Him to take care of this thing and that thing... but I'm more comfortable managing this other one myself.  After all, I'm not sure what He will do if I put THAT into His hands.

Absolute totality is a process.  It's a process even for those in the physical monastery, for while they've pulled their bodies inside, surely parts of their hearts linger for awhile outside the walls.

Continuing with our review of what it means to live with hearts cloistered for Christ, I'd like to spend a few days revisiting quotes from those who know monastic life from the inside.  These are men and women who know this totality, for they've truly lived it.    

Can I identify with what these people have written?  

Can these goals of monastic life apply, in any way, to me?  

"The Christian life is nothing else but Christ; 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)

"All who have put on Christ have heard the call to seek God.  The monk is one for whom this call has become so urgent that there can be no question of postponing his response to it; he must accept forthwith... in every Christian vocation lies the germ of a monastic vocation. (Louis Bouyer of the Oratory, The Meaning of the Monastic Life, PJ Kenedy and Sons, NY 1950, from preface)

"The monk is the man for whom God is a Person:  a Person whom he can meet, whom he longs to meet...."  (Bouyer, pp. 61-62) 

"One cannot give Christ a limited place in one's life."  (Bouyer,  p. x)

"Monastic life is nothing else, no more and no less, than a Christian life whose Christianity has penetrated every part of it.  (Bouyer, 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)   



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Text not in quotes © 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
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Painting:  Kovács, Stairs at Subiaco, 1844