You Can Only Do What You Have Been Given Power To Do

You can only do what you have been given power to do.  I definitely do not have the grace to be celibate, so I am in the process of transitioning out of being a monk.  

I have been struggling with this question for years.  This is not a brash decision.  In consultation with my spiritual director I arrived at this point.  All things considered, it is not surprising to be leaving for this reason.  

In addition to spiritual direction, I've read quite a bit about celibacy and sexuality.  In that reading, I found the confirmation that celibacy is not something you can live if you don't have the grace for it.  

Consequently, after I move out of the hermitage, which will probably be in a few weeks, I expect to return to dating.  Someday I hope and pray that I'll get married.  

In the meantime, I have been well supported by my fellow monks who are wishing me well.  While they have said they're disappointed I'm leaving, they're supporting me in the discernment decision I've made.  

I've also been marvelously supported by the community of oblates.  These lay people who live out contemplative practices in their everyday lives are warmly encouraging me to become an oblate, which I plan to do.  

It's a tremendous help knowing I will be part of the extended spiritual community of the hermitage.  I had been dreading giving up so many of the benefits of living here, namely the spiritual community, the communal prayer, the silence, and the solitude, among so many other blessings.  However, now I realize that God still will be bestowing so many of these blessings on me, partly through the oblate community, and partly since I will be coming back to visit the hermitage.  

I'm also immensely comforted knowing, in the midst of my final discernment decision to stop being a monk, that God loves me after this decision I am making.  In today's Gospel, Jesus looked with love at the rich young man who told Jesus that he had kept all of the commandments and who asked what else he needed to do.  Then Jesus told him that he lacked one thing; He told the rich young man that if he wished to be perfect, to go and sell all he had and he would have treasure in Heaven.  Then Jesus told the rich young man to follow Him, but the rich young man went away sad.*  Yet Jesus still loved him.  And Jesus loves me after this decision I am making to stop being a monk.  

After the rich young man went away sad, Jesus remarked about how hard it was for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.  Jesus noted that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.  Then Jesus explained that what is impossible for people, is possible for God.  What you can't do without grace, you can do with grace.  However, you have to be given that grace, and I have not been given the grace to be celibate, so it's impossible for me to be a monk.  However, I am still loved, by my fellow monks, by the extended spiritual community including the oblates, and most of all by God.  Therefore I will be leaving the hermitage full of love.  

* Mark 10:17-27 

Trust Is The Antidote To Fear

Today I heard a question about fear in the context of discernment.  Fear can affect us in many ways, some of which can be quite debilitating. 

Fear can be disabling.  Fear blocks love. 

If we want to love, we should let fear be cast out of ourselves.  Eventually, we can get to the point where perfect love casts out all fear.* 

God wants to pour His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.**  God wants to drive the fear out of us.  God wants us to trust in Him. 

God is love.***  God is infinite; God's love is infinite. 

God's love for us is infinitely greater than we imagine.  What God has in mind for us is infinitely better than what we can imagine for ourselves. 

When we fear, we are laboring under our misconceptions of what is best for us.  In our fear, we are holding ourselves back from accurately seeing the love that God has in mind for us. 

God wants to set us free from our lack of vision so we can be free to welcome His love into us.  As we let go of our fear, we make room for the love of God in our hearts. 

If we trust in God, our fear will shrivel up as love comes to dwell in us.  Trust in God, and the love it brings, is the antidote to the fear which disables us.  

* 1 John 4:18
** Romans 5:5 
*** 1 John 4:8, 16

Jolted Into Becoming Our True Selves

We get into our routines.  More than that, we get into set ways of thinking, speaking, acting, and praying.  Sometimes it takes a jolt to jostle us out of a rut or a groove that might seem comfortable, but which in fact has been holding us back from becoming our true selves.  

Saint Ignatius of Loyola literally got thrown off course, as he might have seen it at the time.  In retrospect, it seems he might have sensed that a course correction was being made, not that he was being blown off course.  

In his mid-twenties, as a soldier, his leg was shattered by a cannonball.  His leg was so severely damaged that it had to be re-broken and set again.  Sometimes we're so set in our own ways of doing things, that it takes a major mishap to get us to see the way.  

Even then we still might insist on clinging to our preconceptions of what we're supposed to look like. Once his leg had healed, its irregular shape displeased him, so he had his leg cut and set again, despite subjecting himself to the worst pain he had ever felt.  We're willing to undergo the discomfort we choose so things can look as we envision them; do we embrace the suffering inherent in the present moment?  

As he was recovering, Ignatius asked for some reading material, hopefully some tales of adventure. We have our ideas of how we can get better, to get ourselves from where we are to where we want to be.  We make our assumptions of what's best for us based on where we think we're heading.  Maybe something else is best for us, especially if we're heading for someplace other than where we thought we're going.  

In the place of his recuperation, there were no such swashbuckling stories.  Instead Ignatius was given a book on the lives of the saints.  First he started reading the book just to help him be less bored.  When we take up what has been given to us, do we do so only grudgingly, or with fully open hearts?  

Slowly he became entranced reading the lives of the saints.  After not too long he was wondering, "What if I should do what Saint Francis did, what Saint Dominic did?"  In the midst of our troubles, perhaps we are being invited to imagine becoming more than we have been.  

As he imagined doing as the saints did, or alternately succumbing to worldly pleasures, he noticed the varying effects these different thoughts had on him.  Thinking of worldly enticements, he relished them, but later found himself dry and uncontent.  Yet pondering ascetical practices, he felt consolation not only as he considered them, but he also felt consoled later after having set aside such ideas.  

Having listened, Ignatius kept listening.  He kept paying attention.  He considered and discerned what was being placed before him.  He pondered the options before him.  Once he had fully healed, he had become a new person, a metamorphosis he welcomed.*  

Ignatius was seriously injured by the cannonball.  Some might see only misfortune in such an occurrence, yet God works all things to the good of those who love Him.**  In that injury, Ignatius received an invitation.  In his convalescence, he was put into a situation where he had not only the time and the ability, but indeed the necessity, of evaluating who he was and what he was going to do.  

Right now we too are forced to sit and wait.  We can welcome this lockdown, imposed due to the coronavirus, for the conditions which help us see the way.  As we embrace our current challenges, we choose to learn from them.  As long as our hearts remain open, we can accept a course correction, and perhaps start heading in a new direction.  

If we so desire, we can become more than we have been.  With such inclinations, it becomes easier not only to accept our present situation, but through it, to thrive, to become more fully alive, to become our true selves.  With this perspective, we can be broken out of the inertia that has been preventing us from moving forward, that has been holding us captive.  If we consent, we can be set free.  

* Ellsberg, Robert, "The Saints' Guide To Happiness." 2003, New York; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 110-111.  
** Romans 8:28 

It's So Simple

I hope that all of you who are reading this post are well.  You might wonder why I am writing in this frank style.  I'll just come right out and say it: I am leaving New Camaldoli Hermitage.  My postulancy has already ended.  I will not be continuing on into the novitiate.  However, I am still here at this Camaldolese hermitage, and I do not have plans to leave here right away.  

Some of you likely are wondering at this point about my status here at the hermitage.  Therefore, I will take a few moments to clarify my current standing here; then I'll move on to explaining when and why I'm leaving, and why this lovely place and these remarkable people here are so important to me.  

WHAT IS DIFFERENT FOR ME HERE NOW

Since I'm no longer a postulant, I'm no longer in formation here.  Postulants and monks in simple vows, that is, temporary vows, are being formed, shaped and guided in adjusting to living this monastic life.  Given that I'm not in formation anymore, I won't be attending formation classes.  Nor will I be attending the roughly monthly formation dinner, which is attended by the monks who run the formation program, and by the men who are still in formation, when they're here at the hermitage.  Nor will I be attending a formation collatio, that is, communal lectio divina, for men in formation.  

Since I'm no longer a postulant, I am no longer wearing the light cream-colored smock which had been my signature piece of monastic clothing during Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.  Thus I will no longer be fielding questions from retreatants, that is, our overnight guests, and other visitors to the hermitage about the smock!  People have often asked me why I had been the only one amongst the monks who was wearing a smock which only came down to my hips, while all of the monks were wearing habits which ended at their ankles.  One playful monk here, when in a mischevious mood, liked to answer that question for me by claiming that I had to wear the smock as a punishment!  I would then sometimes add that I had gone too far with my bad jokes and the monks were punishing me for my horrible sense of humor!  

To continue with what has just changed for me here at the hermitage, I am no longer sitting with the monks during Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.  In the church, there are two sets of seats which face each other in rows.  In the innermost row on each side sit the monks.  When I was a postulant, I sat in one of those innermost rows right next to the monks.  Now I sit in one of the rows behind them, where the retreatants and our other visitors sit.  

I'm still on the work schedule.  So I'll still be working in the bookstore.  I still might be assigned to wash pots and pans and dishes.  I might still be assigned to clean the library or the monks' recreation room.  I could still be assigned to drive up and down our two-mile long driveway either bringing down our outgoing mail, retrieving our incoming mail, or carting our trash and recyclables to the dumpsters down there.  

I'll still continue driving one of the monks to his doctors' appointments, as I have been doing periodically for the last couple of months.  Incidentally, it is rather unusual for a postulant to be leaving the hermitage as often as I was doing.  If I had continued as a postulant, I would have started making fewer of those trips.  However, given that I am no longer going to be a postulant, I will continue driving him to his appointments as long as he needs me to do so, while I am still here at the hermitage, as one of my work assignments.  

At the hermitage there is a program called "Ora et Labora," which is Latin for "Prayer and Work."  Men who don't necessarily feel called to become monks, but who are interested in coming and living the monastic life here, may come here and work as volunteers and pray with the monks.  Essentially I'm in the status of a participant in the Ora et Labora program at this point.  It looks like at some point before the end of the year, I'll leave the hermitage.  I imagine that at least some of you are wondering what will be next for me.  

WHAT'S NEXT FOR ME, AND WHY

I have been feeling drawn to return to active ministry serving poor people.  Thinking back all the way to when I was a PCT (Peace Corps Trainee), during my first couple of months in Morocco, before I even became a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer), I remember saying to one of my fellow PCTs, Tory, that I was enthusiastic at the idea of volunteering over and over.  I've thought too of the time period soon after I had returned to the states from Morocco, as I was applying to volunteer programs in which I could serve poor folks here in the states.  I was excited to repeatedly volunteer.  After I had been accepted into the Lasallian Volunteers program and had started teaching 7th graders at a Catholic middle school in a neighborhood prone to gang activity on the south side of Chicago, I had a conversation with my sister which has been recently echoing in my mind.  She asked me what I had most enjoyed doing.  I knew that serving the poorest people, while living as simply as possible, was where I had felt most alive.  As I finished my year volunteering as a teacher in Chicago, I said to one of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, with whom I had been living in spiritual community, with a sigh of relief and relaxation, that I could just keep volunteering.  And then at numerous points during my observership and my postulancy, I often thought of volunteering again.  

I have enjoyed volunteering for many reasons.  I have served others.  In particular, I have served poor persons.  I've felt more and more satisfaction as I've served those who are more and more impoverished.  While volunteering, I have lived simply.  In volunteering, I've tried to humble myself.  As a PCV, I enjoyed much solitude, and, consequently, much silence and stillness.  I capitalized on that solitary, still, silent life to read the entire Bible and many other books, and more and moreso, spiritual writings, particularly Christian writings, given that I'm Christian, and, more specifically, Catholic.  I further plumbed the depths of my spirit by studying The Word of God and meditating upon it.   Thus I lived in conditions in which I was practicing spiritual disciplines which I not only greatly enjoyed, but which positioned me well to be able to listen to God with fewer distractions.  Thus as a PCV I enjoyed elements of my life which were essentially monastic.  

Thus I began considering whether God had been calling me to become a monk.  I began visiting monasteries.  Eventually I entered an observership here at the hermitage, in which I was observing this monastic life more closely, over a period of slightly more than two months.  I requested, and was granted, a postulancy, being able to live here as a postulant, that is, as someone who figuratively knocks and asks if he or she is indeed called to become a member of a specific religious community; in my particular case, I have been living here at this hermitage, and during my postulancy, I was inquiring if I was called to become a monk here.  

I have certainly enjoyed many aspects of the monastic life here.  The monks and I all live in our own separate cells, which are basically separate cottages.  Thus we live in solitude.  Consequently we live in silence.  Here one can sit in stillness for significant periods of time, in which one can be more attentive to God's presence and what God is trying to communicate.  While we live in solitude here, we also enjoy spiritual community here.  We celebrate daily Mass together and we chant and otherwise recite the Liturgy of the Hours together here.  We share lunch together everyday, which is a silent meal only twice a week.  We go on recreational outings together at least once a month.  I have greatly enjoyed all of these facets of this monastic life here.  

Yet I've been missing ministering to impoverished people.  Indeed, not only do I miss serving poor folks, I have come to acknowledge recently that a large degree of my passion rests in serving poor persons.  

WHY NOT A RELIGIOUS ORDER SERVING POOR PEOPLE  

You might be wondering why I don't look into joining a religious order which serves impoverished people.  I have.  

I contacted four orders which minister to poor persons overseas.  All four inquiries ended up with doors closed to me.  

I also looked into religious orders here in the states which serve very poor people.  In the religious orders serving impoverished persons where the monks, friars and brothers live the most simply, they also have age limits which I've already passed.  

Given that I'm no longer going to be in a religious order, which means that I'll no longer be taking a vow of chastity, I imagine that some of you might wonder if I'll get married.  I certainly think it's possible; I can see myself potentially married.  However, while I do desire connection involving intimacy, commitment, mutual support, understanding through shared values, and affection, I am conscious that I don't want those desires to rule me.  A much deeper, and much more profound, desire burns in me to live simply while serving poor persons.  

WHY AND HOW BEING HERE HAS HELPED SO MUCH

I've often wondered how to communicate the intensity of the energy and love I sometimes feel for various endeavors and people, including my love of impoverished persons.  I've also often wondered, after occasionally feeling bursts of such energetic and dynamic love, if I would ever harness that tremendous energy, if I would ever focus it, channel it, direct it and apply it.  Due to common misconceptions, I hesitate, and thus gingerly introduce the term "eros" here.  The word "eros" applies much more broadly than many people think.  Many people conceive of eros as applying solely to sexual energy.  Certainly eros encompasses sexual energy.  However, it also includes within its scope our creative energy.  It is in this sense of a powerful life-giving force which supplies us with our creative energy, that I will use the term "eros" here.  It is in this sense that I analogize to the eros in me when I think of the one horse with all of the energy, in the team of four horses working together, in the film "Ben-Hur."  I think of that one energetic horse as a symbol for my eros.  

Some people might wonder why I came here to this hermitage.  I definitely think that in coming here to the hermitage as an observer, and also returning here to the hermitage as a postulant, I did not make mistakes.  I was seeking monastic elements of life which I had enjoyed in Morocco.  Very recently I have come to see stillness and silence as counterweights to my eros, in effect moderating my eros, the passionate excitement and unbridled energy I have to serve poor people.  If we don't control, that is, focus and channel, and thus properly express our passions, they can undo us.  In my reading of the third-century and fourth-century and fifth-century spiritual teachers Origen, Evagrius, John Cassian and the Desert Fathers, for the classes I've taken as a postulant here at the hermitage, I've learned about the dangers of disordered passions, how to conceptualize them, and practical strategies for managing them.  Saint Romuald, the founder of the Camaldolese Congregation of monks, a half millenium later, wisely counseled, "Sit in your cell as in paradise."  Sit in stillness.  Be silent.  Listen.  Calm yourself.  Exercise discipline.  Moderate yourself so as to make wise, prudent decisions.  Over the last few years, I've increasingly come to focus more intensely on such interiority.  I've come to conclude that interiority is part of the proper foundation for doing anything.  Attend to the inner life, and the outer life will be properly ordered.  

Thus, I feel that in deciding to leave here with the fruits of this contemplative life, is, in a way, reflective of the approach which is often advocated by contemplatives.  Sometimes contemplatives encourage others to go into solitude, silence and stillness as they themselves do.  Then, out of their contemplative treasure trove, they bring the gems and treasures they have realized there, to be shared and applied and invested in a life of more actively ministering to others.  Thus I've come to analogize and see contemplative practices as analogous to the calmer, more steady horse of the four horses in the team in "Ben-Hur."  The contemplative tendencies in me moderate the unbridled eros which is being expressed in my excitement and eagerness to pour out myself in serving impoverished people.  

I've also thought recently of the Prophet Elijah journeying into the wilderness.  He lay down and, it seemed, was being not only counseled, but advised, even perhaps urged, by an angel of God, "Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you!"  He got up, ate, and drank; then, strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God.  1 Kings 19:7-8.  I am again speaking symbolically.  Get up and eat.  Drink, absorb the silence, solitude and stillness as nourishment.  Inhale, take in, learn from the silence and solitude and stillness as tools you can use on the journey.  I feel as if God has told me, you need these tools, or else the journey will be too much for you.  

In the film "Ben-Hur," the main character, named Judah Ben-Hur, tells the horse with so much energy, "It is nine times around the circus," meaning there are nine laps to complete.  I've imagined that chariot race in which Judah guides the horses as an analogy to me repeatedly volunteering.  Each time the charioteers completed a lap, a large golden fish sculpture was turned over, signifying the completion of that lap.  I've imagined that as I complete a term of volunteer service, one of those fish is turned over.  I've considered how to properly channel the eros in me, the creative energy and excitement and ambition in me, so that I can complete all of the times around the circus, so I can finish all of the laps.  

I am not literally racing, against myself or anyone else.  However, St. Paul presents another excellent analogy.  He writes that in one's spiritual journey, one should run so that one may obtain the prize.  He further writes that athletes must exercise self-control.  1 Corinthians 9:24-25.  So too must we exercise control over ourselves so as to achieve the spiritual goals we wish to realize.  Thus, as St. Paul described of himself, I press on toward the goal.  Philippians 3:14.  

Sitting in contemplation, attending to my inner being, I am calmed.  In practicing the spiritual disciplines, I am led to properly control and effectively channel my passion for service.  I don't want to exhaust myself with overexcitement before I've delivered the service I wish to donate.  

A MORE HOLISTIC APPROACH NOW

Don't you see?  So much makes so much sense now.  It is true that many parts of me have been fed here.  I have been enjoying worshipping God and celebrating His many blessings here.  I've enjoyed the spiritual community here with the monks, workers and our guests.  My personality has suited me to being here.  I'm an introvert, in the sense that I recharge by spending time alone.  There's plenty of time alone here!  Yet I've also been drawn to spend time in solitude because I ardently desire to feel God's presence.  I seek God's face.  A monk desires nothing more than to see the face of God.  

I do indeed fervently wish to see the face of God.  It is in this vein that I feel that one of these wise Camaldolese monks framed a vocational question well for me. He asked me if I have an inner monk inside me the volunteer, or if I have a passion for service inside me the monk.  I have an inner monk, who needs to have his say at the table where all the different parts of me sit down and help determine how I am going to live my life.

Who else is also at this decision-making table?  Honestly, there's also my inner child sitting at the table.  There's my thirst for adventure.  There's my desire to serve poor folks and live amongst them.  There's my anima, that is, the feminine side of me, who is my muse, my inspiration.  All of these parts of me, and others as well, must have their say in what I do next, or I will be miserable, and will make others miserable, whether I am living in a community of monks, or back out there in the world again ministering to poor folks.  

In coming here to this hermitage and while living there, I have been feeding my inner monk.  Thus, in living this monastic life, I did not make a mistake.  I've imagined if I forced myself to become a monk here, and stay as a monk for my whole life, that once I passed away, God would very well say to me, "I put a thirst for living simply, and a love of living amongst poor people, and a love of serving them, into your heart, into your soul, into your spirit, into the very core of your being.  It brought you so much joy to live simply and live amongst, and to serve, poor persons.  Why didn't you use those gifts more?  It wasn't a task for you to live that way and serve them; it was just the opposite; you reveled in it; it made you feel alive.  I made it so easy for you to do so.  Why did you make it so hard for yourself?"  My mind hearkens back more than a couple of decades to one of my high school teachers.  I asked him to write a note to me in my senior year yearbook: amongst other scribblings, he succinctly advised me, "Never stop thinking.  Stop thinking so much."  

I recently concluded that I had been wondering and thinking too much about what my vocation is, rather than just realizing what my vocation is through how I feel.  I would have done poorly to stay here for a much longer time due to overthinking my vocation.  In contrast, I have felt that thus far I have well spent my time here.  In being here at this hermitage, I have been learning in a school of the service of the Lord our God.  I have had important lessons to learn here.  Having received the necessary instruction, then tarry not.  Leave in a timely manner.  Leave when it is appropriate.  

WHY I'LL LEAVE WHEN I'LL LEAVE

I do wish to stay here at the hermitage for roughly the amount of time to which I had committed.  Typically a postulancy here lasts from about 10 to 12 months.  I started the postulancy in February.  Thus I would like to stay here until December.  

Some of you might be wondering why my postulancy ended before eight months had elapsed, if a postulancy here is usually 10 to 12 months long.  I had said to my postulant-master, that is, the monk primarily responsible for mentoring me here, that although I supposed it was theoretically possible that my longing, to return to serving poor persons, could wane, and that I could shift to desiring to stay here, I thought that such a shift was very unlikely.  After my postulant-master shared this sentiment of mine with the other monks on the formation team, I heard that they explained that once a man reaches such a conclusion, usually the postulancy ends.  The postulant has discerned that he does not feel called to become a monk here, so the purpose of the postulancy has been achieved, and thus the postulancy ends.  Although the aim of the postulancy has been reached, still I wish to remain here for the approximate amount of time I had planned when I began the postulancy.  

In addition to wishing to stay here to fulfill my commitment to be here for the amount of time I had originally planned, I also want to leave in an emotionally and socially appropriate manner.  These monks, and the workers here and I have grown close to each other.  We have established emotional bonds with each other.  We're fond of each other.  So I don't want to leave abruptly.  As my mom is still in touch with the Discalced Carmelite nuns with whom she was a nun 50 years ago before she got married, I too see myself being in touch with these monks for decades to come.  Hence I have been emotionally processing my experience here.  I have felt that leaving here has a bittersweet taste.  I am excited to again minister to poor people, yet I have been sad that I am going to leave these wonderful people with whom I have lived, prayed and worked.  I have found my wistfulness to be moderated by knowing that I will be in touch with these magnificent people.  Also, hopefully, I will be able to come back to visit in between my terms of service to impoverished people, whom I so love to serve.  

THE PLACE GOD CALLS YOU...

So I am leaving here not to do a task.  I am departing here not to carry a burden.  Rather I enjoy living simply and serving impoverished people.  I recall once again the words of Frederich Buechner, who advises, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."  

Also I recall the film "In America," even though I haven't seen it since it was released in theatres around a decade ago.  In it a married man asks another man, "Are you in love with my wife?"  

The other man replies, "Yes."  An uncertain pause ensues.  Then he continues, "And I'm in love with you."  He goes on to say how he is in love with this other person, and that other person, and so on.

In our culture, people who express themselves in such a way might be seen as not only unusual but also bizarre.  However, God does indeed call us to love everyone.  We are to love God and love our neighbor.  How?  Be yourself.  Do what God has called YOU in particular to do.  It's so simple.  Love is simple.  Amen.  

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.  

One's True Identity

As I've described before, in consecrated religious life, the postulancy, the last stage before becoming a monk, is the stage during which one "knocks" to see if one is indeed called to this life.  The words "postulancy" and the word "postulant," for a person in the stage of postulancy, derive from the Latin verb "postulare," which means "to ask."  Over the centuries, men and women showed up at monasteries, convents and hermitages knocking, asking if they would be granted entry into the religious community.  In current times, the terms "postulant" and "postulancy" are used in more figurative senses, to describe the process of asking the religious community, and God, if it seems that God is indeed calling a person to enter that particular religious community. 

In the postulancy, one can be traversing turbulent waters, as one sifts through one's desires and longings.  In such an inquiry, one attempts to plumb the deepest depths of one's heart and soul.  At this point in this life, one is supposed to listen to one's heart.  What is echoing from the deepest recesses of my being?  

Who am I?  In this complex kaleidoscope of my identity, or if it is described as the tapestry of my identity, there are many threads of various colors, widths and textures which are woven together, which make me unique.  To describe my own specific being, I consider especially precious how my soul feels.  I long to feed my soul through loving others, and by listening to God's Holy Spirit.  A person is also made unique by his or her psychological makeup.  We live in physical bodies, so we grapple too with the physical needs and desires we have.  We are also differentiated by the experiences we have had, and by how we have chosen to respond to those experiences.  Thus our choices also come to define us.  

Accordingly, in the postulancy, one weighs all sorts of possibilities which arise.  As one considers joining a particular religious community, other possibilities come to mind.  As a postulant, one weighs the life in the specific religious community in which one is living, along with other vocational possibilities, in light of who one is.  

Some people might say, "You shouldn't be thinking about X or Y or Z.  Those other ways of living have nothing to do with this life.  You're just allowing yourself to be distracted from the monastic life by thinking about those other possibilities."  

However, during the postulancy, as part of the process of knocking to discern if one really is supposed to entire consecrated religious life, one sifts one's desires.  Thus it is entirely appropriate for someone to be considering whether one's vocation truly rests elsewhere, or if one is indeed called to be a monk, brother, sister or nun. 

As one investigates one's true identity, one comes more consciously in touch with powerful energy, which can be channeled toward bringing one closer to God.  At the same time, when becoming more aware of this energy, one can undergo tumultuous times.  Indeed, during the postulancy, sometimes I've felt like I've been on a boat which was being tossed about on stormy waters, and then has been sailing on relatively calm, placid waters amidst crisp, clear blue skies.  And then another internal spiritual storm will arise and challenge the serenity in which I had been living.  Thus as a postulant, it's a repeated experience of being confronted with various possibilities, including one's own desires and needs, in ways which spur one to ponder one's true identity.  

It is important throughout this whole process to be true to oneself.  Some people might think that they should choose a certain vocational option because it's "the right thing" to do.  In fact, the right thing to do is to be yourself.  As you are being yourself, then give as much as you can.  As Frederich Buechner noted, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."  Do what brings you true and lasting joy.  Thus profoundly and deeply feed yourself.  As you're finding deep joy, feed others, and address the deep hunger in the world.  In the process, you and others become one.  Amen. 

A Restless Heart

Today is the feast day of Saint Augustine, so today in the Catholic Church--as well as in the Episcopal, Lutheran and Anglican Churches--we commemorate this particular saint on this specific date on the calendar, as we do with other saints on other dates.  Yesterday was the feast day of Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine, who prayed tirelessly for the spiritual welfare of Saint Augustine.  In recalling saints on their feast days, we remember them during prayers.  At Vigils, we hear ecclesial readings by and about these specific saints.  During Mass, the priest might mention the particular saint during the sermon.  As was the case today, the priest presiding at Mass devoted his entire homily to sharing about Saint Augustine.

Saint Augustine tirelessly sought the truth, including its origin, and the truth of his own identity.  In his book which he aptly entitled "Confessions," which he addressed to God, Saint Augustine asserts how wretched he feels he had been before he realized his true identity in God.  Last month I finished reading his "Confessions," which resonated in my being.  In his "Confessions," Saint Augustine contends, "You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You."

I myself have sought to satisfy the deepest longings of my heart, my soul and my spirit.  I have continued craving a kind of satisfaction which never dissipates.

When I was a lawyer, I was dissatisfied.  Honestly I am grossly understating the state of my being during that period of my life.  As an attorney I was forcing myself for years to stay in a profession which I knew was not my vocation.  Back in those days I did not ask myself what my vocation was, that is, the particular pursuit to which God was calling me.  I merely kept being a lawyer so I could pay off my debt in what seemed to be the quickest way possible, and, as I thought of it back then, so I could get on to doing whatever it was that I was really supposed to be doing.

While I was a lawyer, even though I had read nearly none of the writings of the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, in essence I had already long felt the truth of many of Merton's statements about our spiritual identities.  Often I have thought of one of his statements which essentially communicates the sentiment that maybe I will be happy if I do what I think will bring me happiness, rather than continuing to try to do what others think will make me happy.

Thus I quit my well-paying job as an attorney where I had excellent benefits.  I joined the Peace Corps.  I moved to Morocco.  I moved to the desert.  There I enjoyed solitude, silence and stillness in the many hours when I had no work to do.  I spent that quiet time alone engrossed in spiritual reading.  I sought God.  In that silence, solitude and stillness, I felt I could better hear God.

Thus for years now I have been trying to listen to God.  I have been trying to follow His plan for my life.  It was in Morocco that I first wondered if God had been calling me to be a monk.  Following this potential invitation, I began visiting monasteries.  Continuing to respond to how God seemed to be calling me to become a monk, I became a postulant here at this hermitage.

The word "postulant" comes from the Latin verb "postulare," which means "to ask."  A postulant is one who asks to be admitted into a religious order.  Postulants are seen as knocking, asking for admission into monasteries and hermitages.  They are seeking permission to enter.  They are trying to determine if they have properly discerned a call to consecrated religious life in a particular religious order.

I feel that my consideration of my inquiry into the accuracy of my vocational discernment is brought into appropriate relief this week in particular.  Now, this week, the monks here and I are on our community retreat.  We have a week's time in which we are able to focus more on contemplation.  We continue to have Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours this week, for the most part as regularly scheduled.  However, the monks and I are not on the work schedule this week.  The employees of the hermitage and some volunteers are working here this week.  With the additional time freed up this week, I have been spending much time immersed in spiritual reading.  I have been spending more time alone, more time silent.  I have found myself more easily sitting still.  In the more intense silence and solitude and stillness, we are better disposed to listen to God.

Our retreat master, a Franciscan priest, is leading us through seminars covering Franciscan influences on Thomas Merton, including the medieval Franciscan priest Duns Scotus.  Scotus seems to have heavily influenced Merton's ideas about our true selves and our false selves.  Merton asserts that our true self is who God has always intended us to be.  Our false self is anything else and everything else.  Our false self is peddled to us by certain societal expectations, by various kinds of advertising, by anyone and anything which leads us away from what God has in mind for us.

People often trick themselves into thinking that they want and need things other than they truly, most deeply desire and require.  When in solitude, amidst silence and stillness, away from distractions, one can effectively plumb the depths of one's being.  In the deepest recesses of our souls, we can find the answer of what our truest identity is.

For a long time I have been asking myself if I have been becoming more and more the person God has always meant me to be.  When I was much younger, I was asking the question less consciously.  These days I pose the question much more explicitly.

I have read, and, over time, I have come to believe, that God created us to love and serve and praise Him, and to love and serve our neighbor.  There are many ways to love and serve and praise God and to love and serve our neighbor.  I would suggest to all people that they should indeed inquire how to love and serve and praise God and how to love and serve your neighbor.  However, I urge all people to question themselves more specifically.  How is God asking you in particular, you, the specific person you are, to love and serve and praise Him, and how God is asking you in particular to love and serve your neighbor?  

God wants you to use the skills that God has given to you.  God wants you to be happy as you love and serve and praise Him and as you love and serve your neighbor.  Thus Frederich Buechner has opined that "the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

I feel joy here.  It may very well be that I feel this buoyancy here because I am being who and what God wants me to be.  I hope that I am always submitting to, and living as fully as I can, the truth of who and what God has always intended me to be.  My Lord and my God, not my will be done, but Your will be done.  Amen.  

Who Am I?

Who am I?  Why am I here on this earth?  Many people ask themselves these questions.  Some people more specifically ask what God is calling them to do.  Every person is called by God to a particular vocation.  A person can define his or her vocation as the specific ministry, work or pursuit to which God is calling that particular person. 

Last weekend here at the hermitage, we had a retreat for persons aged 18 to 30 who are trying to discern their vocations.  Father Raniero, Brother Bede, Father Cyprian and a lay religious teacher led the retreat.  I was able to sit in on the sessions and offer some thoughts during some of the discussions. 

People could sign up for this particular retreat while discerning various vocations.  Those who attend this vocation discernment retreat might wonder if God has been calling them to marriage.  Another participant might feel called to consecrated religious life as a nun, monk, friar or priest.  Yet another attendee might be discerning whether to apply to graduate school. 

As usual with preached retreats here at the hermitage, participants arrived on Friday afternoon.  During the Friday evening session, Brother Bede offered some general thoughts on discerning one's vocation.  Attendees received some brief excerpts on vocation and spiritual identity to read in anticipation of the next morning's session.

During the Saturday morning session, Father Cyprian guided our guests through a couple of the writings.  We discussed the reality that each of us has a choice.  We are given many chances to decide whether we are going to do what is common and what is expected from others.  At times doing so may be necessary and other times superfluous.  We decide whether we are going to do what nourishes our souls.  We can choose to try to listen to God, who is calling us to utilize the gifts He has given us, to glorify Him and to serve our neighbor, and thus pursue genuine joy.  We can elect to try to be who we are meant to be, who God has intended us to be and has planned for us to further become. 

In the afternoon, participants had opportunities to receive spiritual direction from monks.  They got to speak with monks about their discernment, consequently receiving spiritual accompaniment with attendant insight and questions to guide them and spur further thought, to aid them in their discernment. 

Later in the afternoon, these retreatants learned about lectio divina, a monastic practice toward reading the Bible and listening to God through the Word.  Insofar as God speaks to us through the Word, and seeks to guide us through the Word, lectio divina is helpful as one proceeds in discernment of one's vocation. 

On Saturday night, we got to know the vocation discernment retreatants a little better during a social gathering.  Over fruit, cheese and crackers, we talked about our spiritual journeys and whatever else happened to come up as we socialized. 

In the final session on Sunday morning, our guests shared with us what they learned during this vocation discernment retreat.  Amongst thoughts we heard expressed, we heard some say that they feel called to pray to God.  We also heard the realization that one can't go it alone, that one can't rely on oneself.  As is often the case when people stay here at the hermitage, we heard hopes too of, upon leaving here, continuing to feel some of the peace felt here. 

After someone experienced peace, he wanted more peace.  What we wish, we seek.  What we seek in the praise and service of God, we will find.  "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened."  Matthew 7:7-8.  

Are we asking, and if so, for what?  Are we seeking, and if we are searching, for what are we longing with the deepest recesses of our souls?  Are we knocking on the doors of our innermost being?  If we launch on such inquiries, we find that God is calling each of us to a special endeavor specifically intended for each of us.  God is inviting all of us to something extraordinary.  

God is at the door for each of us.  God is saying to every person, "I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me."  Revelation 3:20.  Let us ask, seek and knock, and let us open the door to God when He knocks.  In asking, seeking, knocking, and answering the door when God knocks, let us become more than we have been.  Let us experience true happiness.  Amen.  

The Next Step

Earlier this month, on a gloriously sunny Sunday, punctuated by clear blue skies, one of the monks here at the hermitage, Brother James, made his profession of simple vows, that is, temporary vows.  After a year as a postulant and then a year as a novice monk, he vowed, or promised, that for the next three years, he will keep living as a monk in this community.

He vowed that he will continue living a life of poverty, chastity and obedience.  Insofar as this is a community of Benedictine monks, and all Benedictine monks also make a vow of stability to a particular monastery, he is also agreeing to live as a member of this particular monastic community here at this specific hermitage.

In this life of poverty, no monk is earning money to keep for himself.  In Chapter 33 of the Rule of Saint Benedict, Saint Benedict directs monks to hold all property in common, aspiring to emulate the Apostles of Jesus Christ who, as is described in Acts 4:32, freely shared their property with each other.

Chastity requires refraining from sexual activity, but it entails much more than simply abstaining from sexual relations.  A chaste person holds people and possessions in right relation with himself or herself.  One who is chaste respects other individuals and property; he or she properly treats persons and things.

Obedience is reflected in various ways.  One is called to be obedient to God.  A monk is required to show obedience to the prior, or head, of the monastery.  Yet as Father Cyprian, the prior, noted in his homily the day Brother James made his profession of simple vows, a monk vows obedience to the other monks of the community, as Chapter 71 of the Rule of Saint Benedict instructs. 

I found compelling and moving Brother James' profession of simple vows.  It was powerful to witness him, before a church full of people, including much of his extended biological family, vowing to keep living a life of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability in this hermitage for another three years. 

And what is the next step for me?  Whether or not it is a day on which I take a big step, every day presents many little steps, or choices, or decisions, for me.  Each day I am presented with opportunities which have the potential to help whittle down my ego.  The more we relinquish our conceptions of ourselves and let go of our own ideas, and the less we insist on being right and the less we cling to our perceptions of situations, the more we can give to God.  To draw closer to God, we have to unlearn what we think we know.  We must have the humility to realize that there is a great deal which we have been getting wrong and which we do not know. 

A person could easily become quite uncomfortable when faced with these types of psychological demands which are entailed in dismantling one's defense mechanisms.  One must be courageous to persist in such a spiritual endeavor.  Yet a person becomes less anxious in the midst of such otherwise unnerving challenges if he or she remembers that God is always faithful and without a doubt will be true to His Word.  He will help us draw closer to Him. 

Thus the question really becomes one of what I want.  In discerning whether I take the next step, whether I continue in this monastic life, I recall how one of the new monks here framed this very question evaluating whether to keep living this monastic life: "Do I like the changes which are taking place in me?"  One could rephrase this question so that one inquires, "Do I like the work which God is doing in me?"  Alternatively one could ask, "Do I like who I am becoming?" 

In posing these questions, and in responding how we do, we are choosing how we shape our eternal destiny.  Therefore, I assert that each and every one of us everyday should be asking ourselves such questions. 

From Here To There

Some people probably think I am insane.  I voluntarily left my well-paying job as an attorney.  By the time I left that job, every year I was accruing five weeks of vacation time.  We also got more than a half dozen holidays off every year.  I haven’t yet mentioned that we also got the week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day off.  As you might expect, the job had excellent benefits.  I was under relatively little stress at that job.  I even felt somewhat of a sense of fulfillment in that position.  As I insinuated at the beginning, there are people who likely think I am crazy. 

          However, I was just not happy.  I was not deriving enough satisfaction out of my work.  Later, I would conclude that I had not been sufficiently nourishing my soul in that employment.  At the time, I could not articulate specifically what my vocation was; I just knew I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing. 

          Accordingly, I left my job as a lawyer.  I got accepted into the Peace Corps.  I moved to Morocco. 

          Rather than spend significant time here describing my tenure as a Peace Corps Volunteer and my time in Morocco, I refer you to the blog I maintained when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer (see the link at the side of this webpage).  For present purposes, I merely offer a couple of pieces of information.  I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the field of Youth Development.  I taught English as a second language to Moroccan youths and otherwise helped them become more well-rounded individuals. 

While I spent a significant amount of time working, I also had a great deal of spare time.  I passed much of my free time reading.  As my time in Morocco progressed, I read more and more spiritual books.  I read the entire Bible.  I slowly savored “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas a Kempis.  I read works of Thomas Merton. 

I also read about spiritual disciplines, namely, solitude yet also spiritual community, as well as serving others, living simply, praying, studying God’s Word, meditating upon it and submitting to God.  I noted that these practices were all tendencies I had been developing in Morocco, and that I hoped to retain them in whatever endeavor I next undertook. 

Soon after I read about the spiritual disciplines, I read Thomas Merton’s autobiography, “The Seven Storey Mountain.”  I realized that as a monk, Merton spent time in spiritual community as well as in solitude, and that he was serving others, was living a simple lifestyle, and was praying, and was reading The Word and was studying and meditating upon It.  He was trying to submit to God as much as he could.  I suddenly wondered, “Has God been calling me to be a monk?” 

In Morocco, I often thought about what I would do once I returned to the U.S.  I had been thinking that I wanted to use my skills to help people, so that I would be serving God, and doing what He wanted me to do.  Indeed, a vocation is the job or occupation to which God calls a person.  I hadn’t realized that in trying to determine what my next undertaking would be, I had been trying to discern my vocation.  I had been trying to figure out what particular work and lifestyle God had in mind for me. 

I had found that silence and solitude had been quite helpful as I discerned my vocation.  In my discernment, I had spent much time in prayer, much as contemplative monks do.  Some people might think of contemplative monks as escaping from the world.  Contemplative monks do not seek to shut out the world and never again have contact with the world.  Rather, they seek to share the fruits of their contemplative life with those who do not live in the monastery. 

Indeed, people come here to the hermitage sometimes only for part of the day, at times coming only for Mass.  Others come and often stay overnight here at the hermitage.  They come to enjoy the silence.  They clear their heads.  Have you ever made a bad decision?  Have you wished that you took more time to more carefully and calmly consider what you were doing?  We aim to help people sit in silence and stillness so that they make bring the fruits of such contemplation back into the rest of their lives. 

In the silence and the solitude I had had in Morocco, I found that I was better able to listen to God.  Yet back then, when I was so often in such a quiet space, alone, I was not aware what God, or even I, was doing in such a place.  Rather, I was not aware what God was doing in me, how He was transforming me and gently guiding me with the Holy Spirit. 

Although it seemed like a mystery as my life was unfolding, now, looking back, it seems obvious.  God was helping me evolve so that I would be happier.  God wants us to be happy in simply being ourselves.  We are to do what we are good at doing.  We are to meet the world’s needs.  We are to serve God and our neighbor.  However, in receiving this message, we are being directed in a way contradictory to what the world often tells us.  The world leads us to believe, and unfortunately, we do often erroneously convince ourselves, that we need to buy this particular thing, we need to have this other thing, we need to look a certain way.  Unfortunately, many of these messages are trying to deceive us into following illusions, and also unfortunately, we follow many of these misleading messages.  We will not have any of these possessions with us once we arrive on the other side of the divide between this life and the next.  Therefore, the question is raised: Do we even possess any of it?  In the material sense, in this life, yes, we can legally own property.  Yet we won’t own it in eternity.  All we have eternally are our souls, are our spirits.  We do well when we tend well to the spirits of ourselves and others. 

You might think of acting well now with a view to the next life as analogous to planning prudently for retirement.  People manage the income they have coming in now so that they will enjoy their retirement later.  All the more important it is to conduct oneself well now so as to later be living in eternal life.  That’s what God wants.  And in getting there, he wants us to be happy along the way. 

True happiness is far easier to achieve than it appears.  We are called to listen to God and to obey God.  In so doing, we gain freedom.  We are set free from things, no longer enslaved to them.  We are liberated from all which draws us away from Him. 

The prophet Isaiah proclaimed

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me;

He has sent me to bring good news to the afflicted,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to the captives,

release to the prisoners[.]  Isaiah 61:1-2.

Jesus explained that He was making that Scripture passage come true as He was reading it one day in the synagogue.  Luke 4:16-21.  Jesus shows us The Way, and tells us the good news, which brings us back to God.  God calls us to our vocations so that we will become more ourselves.  In setting aside work, activities and lifestyles which, for many of us, do not bring us true happiness, we set ourselves free; we are no longer prisoners to the illusions which society demands us to impose upon ourselves.  When we accept the vocations to which God is calling us, we are no longer captives to the lives we were never meant to live.  When we open our hearts, we become who God has always intended us to be.  We are then truly, profoundly happy.