Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit.*  If we are poor this way, God lives in us.  God is all we need, and we have all we need.  Satisfied, we rest content and glory in our littleness, since through it God is glorified.  

Today at Mass we heard the testimony of Job.  As we well know, Job had lost everything.  As we are less aware, Job was dwelling in that place of confidence in God, even in the midst of disaster.  

Job seemed to have nothing.  Having lost all that could be seen, Job faced the most fundamental choice.  Embracing his nothingness, his inability to help himself, Job expressed his assurance as he adored God.  

Sure of who God is, Job proclaimed, "I know my Redeemer lives."**  Even in the midst of what seems to be total loss, Job declared his unshaken faith in God.  

Today at Mass, Father Cyprian said that Job lived in spiritual poverty, just as did Saint Therese of Lisieux, whose feast day we celebrate today.  Both realized in darkness, we are blessed if we are poor in spirit.  

For months at the end of her life, Saint Therese of Lisieux related the darkness that mocked her, telling her after death it would be still darker.  Yet Therese, in her littleness, went on in faith in God.  

God calls us to embrace our littleness.  Therese went further, writing, "What pleases Him is that He sees me loving littleness and poverty."***  As we find ourselves poor, we can love how we must rely on Him.  

If we love how God made us, poor and little, we embrace the will of God.  If we welcome what others might see as only tragic events, we can ever more become the children trusting in God He made us to be.  

In the midst of the coronavirus, beset by fire, we can accept what our present circumstances have to teach us.  Like little children, we can trust that Our Father is loving us, since He is love.****  

* Matthew 5:3 

** Job 19:25 

*** "The Story Of A Soul," Saint Therese of Lisieux.   

**** 1 John 4:8,16 

The Little Flower

Last night it rained.  Thus today the air has been crisp and clean.  The atmosphere has just been cleansed of what had been sullying it.  The weather, and the effects it has had, I feel, are analogous to what has been happening in my soul.  Spirits are at work in my soul, shifting and sifting what is in me.  If we earnestly ask God for clarity in discernment, He gives it to us.

Such symbolism through meteorological movements, I feel, is apropos given that today is the feast day of Saint Therese of Lisieux.  Saint Therese often felt that the weather mirrored the state of her soul.  

This morning for our ecclesial reading at Vigils, we heard an excerpt from her autobiography which is entitled "The Story of a Soul," which I read last Autumn amidst my visits here to the hermitage.  I very much enjoyed reading it, so I was glad to hear some of it early this morning.  In the particular passage we heard this morning, Saint Therese related how she had wondered why some saints were towering ones, while others were quite understated.  She related how, to help her understand this variety amongst the saints, she turned to 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 13.  In those letters, Saint Paul describes how, just as our physical bodies have their various constituent parts, so too the church is comprised of its many members, each of which has its own particular role to play.  No one can take the part of someone else.  

Similarly, Saint Therese described the myriad of saints, some towering, others less prominent, as being like a field of flowers.  In this meadow, there are roses and lilies.  There one also finds daffodils.  God loves the vibrantly colored flowers, and He also loves the seemingly plain ones too.  

In this array of souls akin to a variety of flowers, Saint Therese considered herself a little flower.  She followed what she called her "little way," taking little steps each day to simply and humbly live her life as a Discalced Carmelite nun by meekly loving her fellow nuns.  

I've often felt drawn to the writing of Saint Therese.  In her little way, I feel that she describes an approach to life which I have long tried to follow.  Though I think that I accomplish so little, and am so simple, that I think that I would be accurately described as a little sprout.  I feel like a little blade of grass barely peeking up through the dirt.  

Yet I feel more than a wee confident in her way.  She felt that in how we treat others, through ordinary actions, we can make simple yet profound spiritual statements.  People who live in this little way probably seem unremarkable to others.  Yet her little way is sure.  It has to be.  It can't just be that we can only get to Heaven by performing prominent heroic deeds.  Otherwise all of the little people out there couldn't get into Heaven.  

Besides, her way is sure because "the greatest among you must be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted."  Matthew 23:11-12.  Saint Therese provides a good example for us because, in her little way of humble service to others, she lived the teachings of Jesus.  

My Mom Visited!

My mom came to visit!  I was so glad to be able to share with her this monastic life here at the hermitage.

I was especially glad that she could experience life here at the hermitage given that, before she met my dad, she was a nun for three years.  She was a Discalced Carmelite, in the tradition of Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross and Saint Therese of Lisieux.  

Discalced Carmelite nuns are strictly cloistered: they are separated from the public.  Thus they remain inside the walls of the cloister, the boundary of the monastery, for more silence and solitude, to facilitate communion with God; they live a predominantly contemplative life.  They leave the monastery only for unavoidable necessities such as a doctor's appointment or a dentist's appointment.  Consequently, it has not been uncommon for Discalced Carmelite nuns to stay inside the cloister for years at a time.  

Simultaneously, adding to the spiritual rigor inherent in a life of being so separated from the world, often they also do not have contact with those who come to their monasteries.  Thus when guests come to such a monastery to pray in the chapel, the nuns are not speaking with them.  Often such a community will have an extern nun who regularly goes out to run errands, but such a person might be the only such person within such a strictly cloistered community.  

Some Discalced Carmelite communities have lessened the degree to which they are separated from the world.  Others remain strictly cloistered.  Each community lives out its faith depending on the spiritual life they feel called by God to lead.

So, my mom was coming here to the hermitage, viewing and assessing the life here, from her previous consecrated religious life as a strictly cloistered Discalced Carmelite.  In contrast, the life here at the hermitage is not as stringent.

It is true that the monks and I are generally here at the hermitage.  However, the monks and I leave the hermitage when we go on an outing of some sort as part of our monthly recreation day.  Any of us might leave now and then to get things done in town, that is, Carmel or Monterey or Salinas or elsewhere.  There is a particular monk here who, every week, drives to these towns and gets things done.  But any of us might go to town perhaps once a month to go to doctors' appointments, purchase things we need, or pick up or drop off an arriving or departing guest or traveling monk.  

Thus I drove to San Jose to pick up my mom when she landed in San Jose.  Since Casa de Clara, the Catholic Worker House where I lived and worked for a few months in the latter half of last year, is so close to the airport, I got to take her to Casa de Clara.  She met my friends who are the Catholic Workers there, as well as the women who, rather than being homeless, live there as they earn and save money in preparation to move out into their own apartments.  My mom was glad that she got to visit Casa de Clara, since she is familiar with the biography and writings of Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker movement.  I was happy that I was able to take my mom there after picking her up from the airport, a benefit of the particular approach to the contemplative life which we follow here at the hermitage.  

Just as life here at the hermitage does not entail staying here as much as my mom stayed in the monastery when she was a nun, so too the lifestyle of this hermitage involves more contact with visitors than she had as a Discalced Carmelite.  People come and stay here overnight.  They might ask us questions in the church or in the bookstore or in the retreat house, which is one place where they stay here.  Even longer than that, guests here sometimes receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, that is, Confession, from one of the monks who, of course, is also a priest.  A guest might also choose to receive spiritual direction from a monk when she or he is here.  Other guests spend even more time with the monks when such guests attend preached retreats here: over a weekend, such guests attend a series of a few seminars and/or workshops on various spiritual topics.  These preached retreats are given by monks and also by oblates, who are lay people belonging to the Camaldolese Congregation who have vowed to follow the spiritual practices of the Camaldolese.

Additionally, at the hermitage, employees not only work here, but many of them live here.  Consequently, we not only have daily contact with, but much more importantly, receive indispensable support from, friends and loved ones here who are not monks and who are not on the path to becoming monks.

With all this contact with those who are not monks, my mom found this lifestyle here to be feasible, in comparison with the lifestyle she led as a strictly cloistered Discalced Carmelite.  I cherished hearing her perceptions of life here.

I was also glad that she was able to come here on Mother's Day!  It was marvelous to have her here at all, and her visit became even more special given that she was able to be here on Mother's Day.  I am so blessed by God, including through my mother's visit here.  I am looking forward to my family and friends visiting again as I spend more time here.