The Abbot’s Notebook for August 31, 2016
Blessings to you! I am still home, writing from my own desk. Always it is good to be able to say that! Next week I will be in Rome so I won’t be able to say it. For now, I am still here!
Brother Cyril passed his driving test this last week. We have been encouraging all of the younger brothers to obtain driver’s licenses so that we have more drivers available in the community. When there are only a few, they be out of the monastery too frequently!
Four from our community traveled to the Orthodox Monastery, Saint Michael’s Monastery, in Cañones, for Vespers on August 25th. We value our relationship with this community of monks.
We have had the honor of the presence of Dr. William Cook, educator, traveler, father and friend, who graced us with two conferences. One conference was on the Christian religious images of Asia and the other on Saint Francis of Assisi and Pope Francis. Bill is a wonderful lecturer and is filled with incredible knowledge that has helped us a lot.
Father Benedict was in El Salvador this last week and returned home on Tuesday. We are always happy to have him in the house!
Here in the community I have been speaking recently about silence, both inner and outer silence. Silence is one of the great monastic values and we read about it in many parts of the Rule of Benedict. In the monastery, we try to observe silence all the day long. We don’t have a vows of silence. Nevertheless we strive to maintain a strong and loving silence all day and all night.
For Saint Benedict, the nightly silence is particularly important. Here at Christ in the Desert, after Compline, the last prayer of the day, we try to maintain a stronger silence until after Holy Mass in the morning. During the day we also try to keep silence unless there is a need to talk.
The ideal of total silence never works in a real monastery. And the external silence is always for the sake of inner silence. Inner silence is not so much about not speaking but about keeping one’s heart set on God in every moment, if possible. Inner silence is about never judging anyone, never letting anger take hold of the heart, never letting lust control oneself, never letting greed be in charge, etc. Truly inner silence is about being in God’s presence and letting nothing disturb that.
In the early monastic writings and even in non-Christian traditions, there is a story about two monks coming to the banks of a flooding river. There was a woman there who told them that she must cross that river and she asked their help. One of the monks refused to touch a woman. The other picked her up and carried her across the river. As the two monks continued walking, the one who refused to help kept talking about how unmonastic it was for the other monk to touch that woman and to carry her over the river. Finally, after an hour or so, the monk who had helped her turned to the other monk and said, simply: I left on the river bank and you are still carrying her.
This is a wonderful story because so often we ourselves carry burdens and refuse to put them down, instead of leaving them in the hands of a God who loves us and getting on with prayer and being in His presence. Instead of being with God our hearts and minds are caught up with lots of other burdens.
Silence is learning to put all our burdens into the hands of this God who loves us and then simply to be in His presence without cares or concerns.
How do we get to such silence? Again it is a process. It is nothing that we can just will to do in one moment. Instead we must work each day to leave our concerns with the Lord. This is a process of developing silence. Just as we have to keep choosing not to speak externally, so also we must choose to be still internally. It is a choice that brings about a habit, a way of doing things that becomes habitual within us.
For the monk, we can start the day by kneeling at our bedside and asking for God’s help to be with Him throughout the whole day. Then we begin the activities of our day, but always seeking to be with Him, seeking to be aware of His presence in all creation, in other people, in our activities and in our common prayers. Again, we must remember always: we must choose to do this and the more often we choose to do this, the more quickly we develop a habit of doing it. The habit of working on outer and inner silence can sometimes, in the life of a monk, become more important that the reality for which we strive: union with God at every moment of our day. So we must be careful so that when we are silent, we are actually setting our heart on the Lord.
Being still takes an effort on our part. We just stop throughout the day and be aware of God and strive to listen to Him and even say a few words to Him. Mostly, however, it is a simply and tranquil awareness of His presence and of His complete love for us. He loves us. The Scriptures tell us that over and over. The tradition of the saints tells us that over and over. We must become completely convinced of His love and in that awareness we shall be still and quiet.
As always I promise to celebrate a Holy Mass for you and for your needs and intentions this week. May you know His love and His presence in your lives. Please also pray for me and for the sisters and brothers of our communities. I send you my love and prayers.
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip
