Our own spiritual seasons can be as subtle as a Florida autumn. Granted, in our spiritual journey we may indeed experience glorious autumns, radiant springtimes, interior snowstorms, and major heat waves; but often the seasons are subdued and may be overlooked if we are not paying attention.

• Perhaps we sense a dryness where spiritual fruit used to grow—or on the other hand we may find sweet nourishment in places where we would ordinarily not be likely to look.

• Perhaps there is a delicate shift in our image of God or in the type of prayer to which we feel called.
• It may be that God is present to us in a way that is simply less obvious than before, so that it seems for a while as if God were not there at all.

• Or God may be speaking to us in silence…
• …or through small events in our lives—outwardly unremarkable occurrences or encounters that we might tend to ignore.

One kind of prayer which can help us notice God’s presence in our everyday lives, as well as our own response to God’s love for us, is the daily Consciousness Examen. It doesn’t have to take more than a few minutes. Two forms of it are found at the sites below:

The Daily Examen

Prayer of Examen (from Creighton University)

This quote came in an e-mail filled with Christian one-liners.  It seems particularly apt, especially on those days when I am making myself unhappy because God has not consulted me about the way life is going.

Saint Therese Couderc knew a more reliable path to happiness.  You can read her reflection on the peace that is found in handing oneself over to the good God, or watch the video:

]]> http://www.vocationquest.org/cenaclearchives/2009/10/514/feed/ 0 http://www.vocationquest.org/cenaclearchives/2009/08/dance-before-the-lord/ http://www.vocationquest.org/cenaclearchives/2009/08/dance-before-the-lord/#comments Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:59:14 +0000 Cybernun http://www.vocationquest.org/cenaclearchives/?p=480 Soon after making first vows in the Cenacle, I was sent to be on the staff of our large retreat house in Saint Louis.  Since we offered a full schedule of spiritual programs ― retreats, days and evenings of prayer, spiritual direction, directed retreats, and more ― I met many people.  Some, however, stood out from the others and continue to hold a special place in my memory.  Two of these happened to be residents of the state mental hospital.

I don’t know who made the arrangements, but occasionally the two women would be put in a cab, given return taxi fare, and sent to the Cenacle for a women’s day of prayer.  Suffice it to say that both of them were rather conspicuous in the group of mostly middle-class women making the prayer day.  The appearance of one reminded me of the water-color illustrations of the crone ― the benign crone, not the sinister one ― in my childhood fairy-tale book.

One particular program they attended was being led by a priest.  At some point during the day, he asked each of the participants to share with the group her thoughts on his chosen topic (which I have long ago forgotten).

When it came the turn of one of the women from the state hospital, she said, “I can’t speak, but I can dance.”

And dance she did!

Was the rather dignified group uncomfortable or embarrassed with this display?  If so, there was no indication of it.  At least one woman, at the end of the day, said that this silent dance was what spoke to her the most powerfully from the whole day of prayer.

The dance of a mentally ill woman, an offering from one of the anawim, the poor of God, had revealed the beauty of God in a way that all the learned words spoken by the priest could not do.

Those who have eyes to see, let them see.

At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.”

Matthew 11:25 (NIV)

Let them praise his name with dancing,
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.

Psalm 149:3

Get away from yourself.
Come to church.

“Why would I want to get away from myself?” I think. “I’m the only self I have.”

Then I remember what Huston Smith says about the early Christians. He reflects that in spite of the danger they often found themselves in, they seemed happy. They had about them a radiance that was puzzling to others. The explanation, he says, lies in the fact that “three intolerable burdens had suddenly and dramatically been lifted from believers’ shoulders”:

1. “The first of these was fear, including the fear of death…”
2. “The second burden they had been released from was guilt…”
3. “The third release the early Christians experienced was from the cramping confines of the ego.” *

The “cramping confines of the ego”

The ego can not only cramp us, it can also be a tyrant. We may find ourselves trapped in a false self that is hungry for more of everything—more power, more esteem, more money, more diversion, more accomplishments, a more beautiful body, more, more, more… We can be deceived into thinking these are the things that give us joy. And no matter how much we acquire or accomplish, the tyrant is never satisfied.

Any of these “mores” can usurp the place of God in our lives. Or we can yield to the “more” of trying to make of ourselves little gods — which in reality is a twisted temptation, because as it turns out, our Christian call is already to be “participants in the divine nature” (see 2 Peter 1:3-4).

Participants in the divine nature

What an amazing thought! The false self, however, is not crazy about the idea of our being participants in the divine nature, for this wondrous gift must be accepted in a way that is alien to societal norms.

The seductive and absurd premise of the wildly popular book, The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, is one that flatters the false self. There we are told, “You are the master of the Universe… You are the perfection of Life… your whole life and everything in it has been created by You.” (Notice the capital Y.)

Unlike The Secret, the Bible calls us to take on the mind of Jesus, who “did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:7). Jesus, who would have had reason, we might think, to cling to equality with God, was free from the “cramping confines of the ego.”

The paradox is that the false self tries to be God, while our true self, found in God and participating in the divine nature, is the very soul of humility.

Continually turned toward God

In 1864, Saint Therese Couderc, the co-founder of the Cenacle, pondered the key to peace and joy, which she saw as surrendering oneself totally to God, as Jesus did. “In a word,” she wrote, “to surrender oneself is to die to everything and to self, to be no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually turned toward God.”

Of course being “no longer concerned with self” does not mean neglecting either our bodies or our spirits, both so precious to God. We are to nourish our bodies with wholesome food and nourish our minds and our souls with knowledge and prayer. But even as we care for ourselves, we are to be “continually turned toward God,” allowing God to transform us, so that our whole being, growing in the divine compassion and mercy, reflects our union with God. This is the only way to be happy and to be free of the domination of that perfidious false self.

For freedom Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, therefore,
and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
(Galatians 5:1)

__________

* Huston Smith, The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), 79-81.

Our conversation has been lively and, for the most part, respectful. Both of them (like many of the others who participate in the ex-Christian forum) are locked into the idea that God, as presented in the Bible, is not only violent, but has killed “more people than Hitler,” as D put it.

When B offered to send me the “hundreds of articles” he had written against Christianity, I asked if he thought they would make me more a loving and compassionate person.

B responded, in part, “How does the Hebrew god Yahweh, who killed maybe millions of men, women and children … make you a ‘more loving and compassionate person?’”

Both of them reject the notion of a violent and unjust God — and they are right to do so.

What they also do not accept is a God in whom there is no violence at all. Neither can they admit that the Bible, in a beautiful way, shows God leading the Hebrew people — through their history, prophets, and writings — from a primitive view of God to a more profound understanding of who God is, culminating after the resurrection of Jesus with a more intimate knowledge of God’s love and mercy.

In other words, the story of the Bible is not static. The inspired writers and compilers of the Bible were honest enough to give us as much of the whole story as was revealed to them, including updates. That is, when a deeper understanding was given, they included that as well as the more primitive one — sort of like offering Windows XP along with 95, instead of pretending 95 was never part of the story. Sometimes they even presented more than one version of the same event, perhaps to increase the depth of our vision of that event.

We remember that Jesus would sometimes say, “You have heard it said,” after which he would add, “but I say to you…,” followed by a new understanding. For example:

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” [This is found in both Exodus and Leviticus.] But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; …

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:38-39; 43-45)

Sometimes Jesus made the same point less directly. To take an extreme example, the book of Leviticus instructs, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death” (20:10 ). Jesus, however, when questioned about a woman caught in adultery, stooped down and wrote quietly in the sand. Finally he said, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).

Unfortunately, many people who call themselves Christian still hold the primitive view of a violent God.

The word of God is found in the Bible as a whole. That is, it must be taken as a whole, not just as isolated parts. And the touchstone is always God as revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Both D and B are in God’s grasp. They are in God’s grasp, first, because everyone is held in being by the love of God; but second, in the sense that they have not been able to let go of God. We are most distant from those toward whom we are indifferent, not from those whom we despise.

I am reminded of the words to the church in Laodicea, found in the book of Revelation:

I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (3:15-16).

Neither B nor D could be called lukewarm. They are constantly wrestling with God, battling with those who believe in God. They are not indifferent toward God, and this, I believe indicates that in some mysterious way, which they would not themselves admit, they are close to the God who loves them.

When I approached Main Street the other day to make a right turn, I noticed a bicyclist at the corner, waiting to cross. He was less than respectable looking, bone thin, with a short scruffy beard and an arm covered with tattoos. I was fully expecting him to cross the street before I turned — after all, he got there before I did. Instead, he waved me on ahead of him.

That’s all he did — just let me go first. No big deal. But I felt as if his action were a sign of the goodness of God. More, it seemed at that moment that the kindness of God was visibly present in him.

“All creatures are by nature endeavoring to be like God,” says Meister Eckhart. “The heavens would not revolve unless they followed on the track of God or of His likeness. If God were not in all things, nature would stop dead, not working and not wanting; for nature fundamentally is seeking, although obscurely, and tending toward God.”

We human creatures are also, often very obscurely indeed, seeking and tending toward God. Our efforts may be misguided, as we mistake lesser things for God; or we may try to refuse the search or turn from Love. However, we are made for God and made to be like God, which is the only way we will be happy. Performing or receiving a simple act of kindness can provide a glimpse of that truth and bring us closer to the conclusion of St. John of the Cross, who said, “In the evening of our life, we shall be judged by love.”

“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
(2 Corinthians 3:18)

What is so mysterious is that the monarch butterflies fly each year to a place they have never seen. There seems to be implanted in them the need and the desire for this location and these particular trees, as well as the instinct for arriving there. In fact, the previous ones to winter in those trees are long dead — it is several generations of their grandchildren who make the next trip.

We also have a desire implanted in us — the desire for God. Ordinarily what we long for is something we don’t already have, and it can seem this way with God, too: that we long for God because God is not there.But strangely enough, longing for God is a sign of the divine presence. God is there in our longing. We wouldn’t be longing at all, if God weren’t already present, touching us and implanting in our hearts the desire for the divine. The longing itself draws us toward the one who is truly already with us.

Therefore we can pray, “Come, Lord Jesus!” in confidence and peace, because Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” is present to us and in us as we call to him.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
(Psalm 130:5-7)

Before long, however, I passed a car with a small uncovered trailer attached, pulled off the road. In the trailer were articles of furniture. The occupants of the car looked as if they were securing the furniture in the trailer. I considered turning around and going back to tell them that I had seen their easy chair and drawer a way back on the highway, but this was rural Alabama, and the next exit was miles away. I realized that by the time I got back to spot where I had seen them, the people with the trailer would probably be long gone, either in the hunt for their furniture or bemoaning its irrevocable loss.

I couldn’t help but wonder at what point they had noticed something amiss. Didn’t they feel a certain lightening of the load as objects dropped from the trailer? Were they so busy looking ahead at the road or perhaps debating politics or religion among themselves that they observed nothing of what they were hauling?

Questions to ponder:

What am I hauling around with me, spiritually, emotionally, or physically, that I would do well to leave alongside the road — and move on, lightened in spirit?

Can I let go of what no longer serves — unnecessary possessions, fear that keeps me from God, the need to be perfect, or the need for things around me to be perfect, even the need for my prayer to be filled with what St. John of the Cross calls “sweetness”?

Can I hold lightly the things that do serve, knowing that when I cling to anything that is not God, it weighs me down on the spiritual journey?

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth
that I desire besides you.
(Psalm 73:25)

The babies venture along the top of the patio walls and the wooden beams that connect the walls. They reach out toward a small tree just beyond their reach but which someday soon will be only a small leap for them. They try their courage as they move farther away from the nest — until some noise or movement startles them: a car passing or any small crack or pop from the yard. Then they dash as fast as they can back to the hole in the wall which is their nest. From the security of home they peer out at the wide world, and only when they begin to feel safe again do they risk another sortie along the wall.

It’s always good to have a safe haven. It’s good to be able to return home when something frightens us. For us, our true home is God, and although we are always journeying toward God who is our destination, it is also true that our journey is in God, so that we carry Home with us all the time. We can always turn toward the safety of home, and from there, gaze with new eyes and clearer vision on what startles us or disturbs us.

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.

Happy are those who live in your house,
ever singing your praise.

(Psalm 84:1-4)

Oh, I had read a romantically pious biography of her, and knew that an important element in her spirituality was surrendering oneself* to God. On that winter day in Saint Louis , though, the ground covered with a foot of snow, I had no idea of what this concept required — of both how difficult it is in real life (and how easy – see the whole meditation of Saint Therese at “To Surrender Oneself”).

I had not yet learned what Mother Therese knew — that there is nothing we can call our own. She spoke of “my extreme poverty” (in French, ma misère). She was conscious of having no virtue of her own: whatever goodness she had was from God, and even her spiritual life was more God’s affair than it was hers. She said that if she were called to account for her deeds, she would find herself with empty hands, her only recourse being the great mercy of God. But for her, as for us, this great mercy of God is sufficient.

I did not yet know that all-sufficiency of God’s grace. I knew it in my head, of course, having been well taught. But when I entered the Cenacle, not having grown into a spiritually mature daughter of Mother Therese (and who can ever claim to be entirely mature?), I was still afraid of what God might do when I failed in faith or devotion or human virtue. I was well aware of my own lukewarmness. I knew the pitiful state of my prayer. Would God abandon me because of that? And what if I made a terrible mistake or committed a dreadful sin? Was it possible to be so evil that I would not be forgiven?

How miserable I made myself!

Mother Therese wrote:

In a word, to surrender oneself is to die to everything and to self, to be no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually turned toward God.

To surrender oneself is, moreover, no longer to seek oneself in anything, either for the spiritual or the physical, that is to say, no longer to seek one’s own satisfaction, but solely the divine good pleasure.

To be “no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually turned toward God” and “no longer to seek oneself in anything, either for the spiritual or the physical” — I realized that this stance must also include the way I dealt with my failings. In other words, how could I be continually turned toward the good God and at the same time constantly focused on my own inadequacy? How could I be no longer concerned with self, if I were always berating myself, rather than praising God for the divine mercy freely poured out in Jesus Christ who died for me?

What about my prayer? What about other areas of my life? Here, too, it is impossible to be continually turned toward God if my primary concern is the quality of my own prayer — or the state of my faith, or my relationships, or my work, or anything else that I consider mine. A certain discipline is important, certainly, but even the discipline is not to be my primary focus. My focus must be God.

This turning toward God means handing over the results of my prayer or of any other undertaking. The fruits are important of course. Am I growing in faith, hope, and love? Does my life witness to what Paul calls, in Galatians 5, the “fruit of the Spirit”: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”? If not, something is askew.

Success or failure, however, is another matter altogether. In the life of Mother Therese there were certainly what we would call failures — the most startling being that she was deposed from her role as superior general — in other words, she was fired. But what we human beings consider failure is not necessarily failure in God’s eyes. Just consider the colossal “failure” of the mission of Jesus as it seemed to end on the cross.

In the Spirit of this same Jesus, Mother Therese handed herself over to the one she knew as the Good God. Through grace, she answered the call to entrust herself to a Mystery she could not see, but whom she experienced as Mercy, Love, and Peace.

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

(John 12:24)