Permit me to speak as a monk, living the enclosed contemplative life of prayer.
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When the monk first enters the enclosure he may be full of zeal for God, and ready to do any work that is placed before him. He generally sees these works in practical terms. He understands that his service is not to consist in going out into parish life and assisting in the good works carried out there by the church, but sees that in a monastery there are all sorts of practical things that need doing; maintaining the buildings, helping on the farm or in the garden , keeping the books, taking his share in all the duties and chores that need doing around the place, and he assumes that his life will consist in carrying out these practical and visible works inside the monastic enclosure.
But there is waiting for him, and he cannot know this until he is faced with it, a work, a task, of a rather different order – it is a work of waiting, of holding steady, of keeping faith, of watching and praying, of waiting on the Holy Spirit while nothing very much seems to be happening around him. Indeed, things around him might appear at times to be going very wrong indeed, might appear, in fact, to be heading for disaster.
He has a work on his hands now – to keep steady, to keep faith, to keep what was first entrusted to him, and go on. Although this work, to the world, appears to be no work at all, and there will be no shortage of onlookers saying, „You’re not doing anything! You ought to get on with some real work!“ it is in fact a very practical work, it needs doing, just as much as meals obviously need preparing and grass obviously needs cutting, and the chapel obviously needs to be got ready for the Eucharist.
You might be thinking, „Well, yes, that’s really interesting but what’s it got to do with us out here?“ Well, everything, I think, because as I’ve said often before, the spirituality of True Life in God is a monastic spirituality, intended for everyone, and accessible to everyone, wherever they are and whatever their circumstances. It is ‚monastic‘ in that it is what monks first went out into the desert to look for, seventeen hundred years ago, when they perceived that there was something else, something ‚other‘ which they were led to desire and hope for. Having found it, they found that it was not just for them, and neither was it just for ‚believers‘, but it was the inheritance of everyone.
The monastic witness is not universally appreciated in and by the Church at large, and neither is True Life in God, as we are finding today. What it reports to the Church is, for many, rather difficult to cope with, and we may find ourselves meeting baffled incomprehension, if not outright hostility, when we try to bear witness.
But this is where perseverance, keeping steady, holding fast to what we know is true and right, comes in. And as we keep steady, as we go on, something happens, and our spiritual life becomes deeper, broader, and rather more ‚still‘ than perhaps it was in our earlier days when we zoomed around doing, doing, doing.
This is not a cop-out; this is not making excuses for lack of ‚success‘, although the world will always say that it is.
If your prayer group is not the vibrant success you once hoped it would be, if your life of prayer is drier and more arid than you think you can handle, if your hopes and dreams for the future appear to have been snuffed out, if your efforts to ‚do‘ for God are not being met with results, then take heart. You are walking along a well-traveled road, in the company of those who have gone that way before you. Speak to them, think of them, hold converse with them, celebrate their Feast Days, enjoy their company, their counsel. They can tell you that, yes, it is like that, but go on in it and through it and you too will come to understand things in a way, and to a depth, you never could before.
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Say your prayers, keep your faith, read the messages. A message a day, if you’ve time for nothing else, and go on in expectation.
It will soon be Advent and we will chant,“ If He seems slow, wait for Him…He will surely come, He will not delay…“
Have you noticed? Things have been rather quiet these last weeks, and we may have felt certain unease at times, a desire to keep our head down and go quietly. Our Lord has been at work in our Hearts, preparing them for the Season that is approaching. When things like that are happening, it isn’t a time to say very much, it’s just a time to get on with it and let Him do His work in us.
It is an astounding thing, in the Northern Hemisphere at any rate, how this interior change according to the Seasons of the Church’s Year proceeds in tandem with the exterior change as autumn sets in and the long nights are with us once again.
Hooray for the Church, and Her Liturgical Seasons, and the work She enables us to do within Her confines.
Best Wishes,
Brother Andrew
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