The Abbot’s Notebook for December 7, 2016
Blessings to you! I am at Christ in the Desert as this arrives to you, but I spent four days with the Sisters of Our Lady of the Desert serving as their chaplain. I rarely get an opportunity to share in this kind of service to the Sisters, but am happy to do so. I would have stayed longer but I have been away from my own monastery too much already.
Thursday of last week, two novices from the Monastery of San Jose in Costa Rica arrived to spend three months in our community. Our Abbot President, before he was elected president, and I were named as Godfathers to this community in their founding documents and we have both tried to be available to the new community and to help it many ways. Both of our communities have sent monks to live with this new community from time to time. The community is established under the local Bishop of Cartago. Receiving their novices to live with us for an extended period of time is another way of helping. Please pray for them.
One of the enormous challenges of the spiritual life today is to keep our inner self completely directed to God even as we live our ordinary lives. In the past, even when I was young, this was almost always taken for granted. Today there are so many distractions that it is difficult to keep our inner being, our whole being, centered on God alone. Sometimes I joke with my brothers: how can I write a letter to someone if I am only thinking of God?
We have to recognize that we don’t choose God like we choose other things. God is not just one more thing to choose. God is in all but not in the way that so many mislead us today. God shows us how to choose Him in the Scriptures and in the Church. Choosing God means choosing to live according to what God has taught us and to live in the way of Jesus Christ. So, for instance, when I choose to love all others, no matter the cost, I am choosing God. When I choose to live chastely according to my way of life, I am choosing God. When I choose to serve others, I am choosing God.
Choosing God always implies a moral framework. When young people tell me today that they feel free to do anything as long as it “feels” right and good, then I know that I will have a challenge explain to them that following God, knowing God, choosing God, is not about “feeling good.” So many people today have lost any sense of a God who reaches out to us and gives us revelation to help us know HIS presence and love for us.
At the heart of any true Christian faith is a recognition that God is reaching out to us and gives us a knowledge of Himself through the Sacred Scriptures, the Old Testament (the Jewish Scriptures) and our Christian New Testament. The Jewish People and we Christians believe that God reaches out to us through time and history in order to draw us to Himself. We believe as Christians that God sends His Son, Jesus, as our Redeemer. The Father and the Son send us the Holy Spirit. We believe that God is Trinity and still unity. There is only One God and yet there are Three Persons in the One God.
That all sounds very formal and doctrinal, but that formal and doctrinal understanding comes from the experience of the early Christians who walked with Jesus and knew Him personally. Our faith is a gift that we receive from our ancestors in the faith. In our Catholic Church, we are now in the liturgical season of Advent and preparing ourselves to celebrating the coming of Jesus in the flesh.
For most of my life I presumed that Catholics all accepted the teachings of the Church and that there was a deep awareness of the presence of God in the Sacred Scriptures. I presumed that Catholics all believed that the Scriptures are the revelation of God to us. Today I realize that many Catholics no longer accept that teaching and see the Church only as one religious institution among others. Catholics no longer feel bound to follow the Church in her teachings.
Can a non-Catholic have a spiritual life? For sure! Can an atheist have a spiritual life. Yes, I think that is possible. On the other hand, the spiritual life which keeps us walking in the truth and in daily contact with the Lord Jesus comes always through Jesus Christ and His Church. I used to be uneasy saying that because I prefer to be inclusive rather than exclusive. I want everyone to feel good about life and about salvation. That is a gift in me and also a defect in me. Over the years I keep learning that I must say the difficult things as well and the things that make people happy.
For sure life is about being happy, but that is not all that life is about! We are called to look for the presence of God in our lives and to give ourselves completely to God. That giving of ourselves will not always make us happy in the moment! Instead so much of loving God is learning how to accept the sufferings that are simply part of learning how to love in truth—not just in feeling. I think of so many young couples that have known over the years. Once they get married, all of a sudden they find that things have changed and that they must work hard to maintain their love for one another. In order for their marriage to flourish and deepen, they each must learn how to sacrifice themselves for one another—and eventually for their children.
Real life and real love for God is like that young married couple in the sense that loving God always implies choosing what is right in our actions and our feelings and our way of being. To do that, we must learn to sacrifice ourselves so that we make good choices. The spiritual life will support making good choices if we continue to struggle with our inner life. Prayer and being with God is a choice that will require everything that we have eventually. Advent is a good time to look once more at the choices in our lives and to see if in our choices we are choosing God.
As always I promise my prayers for you and for your needs and intentions. I will offer Holy Mass once this week for you. Again I beg your prayers 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
