The Abbot’s Notebook for February 22, 2017
Blessings to you! Today I am writing to you from South Africa. I am in the northern part of this country, in the Province of Limpopo, at St. Benedict’s Abbey in Polokwane. I have not been here in many years but know most of the senior monks. From 2006 until 2010, many of the monks of Christ in the Desert came here to help this community. Our Abbot President asked me to come along on this visitation to help him, so here I am.
At Christ in the Desert, our Brother Dominic returned from India but had to be taken immediately to a hospital. The doctors are not yet entirely sure what happened but something was terribly wrong with his blood and it caused his legs to swell and be blotched and he could barely walk.
Joshua the Beagle never returned but Thumper was rescued off the mountain. I get very attached to the dogs, but also recognize that life goes on.
Father Simeon and Subprior Benedict returned from their time in Texas the same day that I left for South Africa. It is a challenge for us all to be home at the same time.
As I reflect on the spiritual life I wonder sometimes whether I understand anything. There are a few certainties for me: God loves me and God loves all of us completely and totally; I am very faithless in my response to God’s love; the challenge for me is to get up and keep trying not matter how often I fail.
These are the three basic certainties in my life. Yes, of course, I lead a normal life every day. I get up and attend the common activities of a monk. I eat, I pray, I read, I do my work, and I go to bed and sleep. The most important aspect of all of those activities is that I try to do them for my Lord Jesus and I try to be faithful, over and over.
For instance, my journey here took me through nine time zones. Last night my sleep was not normal. That was not a surprise. When I would wake up, I would try to offer the broken sleep to the Lord and leave everything in His hands. That always puts me back to sleep! Rather than trying to figure out how to work through the Canonical Visitation here, I simply put everything into His hands. At a psychological level, I recognize that putting everything in the Lord’s hands frees my mind from thinking and allows me to sleep. Nevertheless, this is still a decision that I must make. I don’t automatically think to put everything into God’s hands, even if everything is His anyway.
Spirituality is often about small decisions like that. We must come to trust in our Lord and to believe deeply that HE is at work in our live in a loving way that is beyond all that we can imagine. Far too often, God is experienced as outside of ourselves, remote and even uncaring. The reality is SO difference. God is more present to us that we ourselves are present to ourselves. God’s love never fails and never turns against us. God is always at work, striving to bring about our salvation.
For me, most often, the challenge is consistency. At times I can be very consistent in my relationship with God. I can offer Him all that happens in a day and even when I fail, I am able to return to Him. Other days, I just sort of don’t want anything to do with God. Why? I really don’t know. I am like a spoiled child who always wants things on his own terms. Life is never like that! Instead, life comes on God’s terms and we can’t always understand them. That is why so many people find it difficult to believe in God. So often what happens in our lives does not seem like an expression of God’s love for us.
We must learn to think differently about life and about our daily experiences. If we begin to think every day: God loves me and whatever happens to me this day contains God’s love, then we can begin to see life in a different way. It is not easy to develop a habit of looking at life each day as a gift from God. It is much easier to see life as a challenge each day. Quite a long time ago, I mentioned Gabriel Marcel’s statement that life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.
So I have to ask myself from time to time: are you living this mystery or are you always trying to work out a way to solve the problems of life? When I find myself trying to solve problems, I recognize that this brings stress into my life and a certain tension which draws my attention. When I am striving to live the mystery, I tend to be relaxed and open and listening and attentive to everything in a situation without trying to resolve it at any particular time.
Why don’t I always live in the mode of mystery? Probably because solving problems distracts me and keeps my attention and interest while mystery means that I must wait on the Lord! It is easier for me to do than just to be!
As I end my letter this week I ask your prayers for a young man diagnosed with brain cancer. He wants to remain anonymous, but is surely in need of prayers.
As always I promise my prayers for you and for your needs and intentions. I will offer Holy Mass once this week for you. Always I am blessed by your prayers for me and I ask your prayers for the women and men of all of our communities. I send you my love and prayers.
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip
