Experiencing Christ In Silence
If you read my article last week on Cardinal Sarah, you will notice how much I enjoyed his words from his latest book, the only of his I…
If you read my article last week on Cardinal Sarah, you will notice how much I enjoyed his words from his latest book, the only of his I ever read, The Night Is Now Far Spent.
He has strong admonitions for all, especially priests and bishops, but what he has to say is powerful once we understand his focus.
Everything he says comes from one place, a deep relationship with Christ. Therefore, he calls one to know the experience. One of the tools to do this is through fostering silence in prayer and clearly prayer before the blessed sacrament.
The Prophetic African Voice in Catholicism
The African Cardinal Robert Sarah challenges Western Civilizationmedium.com
His words led me to begin a practice I only did before on retreat. Eat supper in silence. No radio, I am alone when I eat anyway so I have no one to talk to and just sit, prepare my meal and eat it in silence. I am saying nothing and I am hearing nothing from anyone else. This fosters an attitude of prayer and conversation with the Lord. It is the starting place of his speaking and writing, a place of silent listening and speaking only with the Lord. I am familiar with the practice, unfortunately, I have not done it for some time.
In the year, 1999, I took a chance and went on a retreat to a monastery in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Christ in the Desert Monastery is located somewhat outside of Santa Fe. What attracted me there was that I would be living in the west for a week, no electricity, with a wood burning stove and a kerosene lamp. Granted there was electricity provided by solar panels in the monastery proper, but I would be in the guest house. The whole plant was completely surrounded by the desert.
I rented a Dodge Neon and drove from Albuquerque to Abiquiu. Back then, I had a cavalier attitude toward retreats. I knew I would be there, but I planned to take a few trips to Santa Fe and experience that South Western city during the week.
It happened, but after my retreat ended. You see, the monastery was at the end of a thirteen mile dirt road. The Dodge Neon is not high off the ground and I spent my first part of my retreat praying that I would not destroy the undercarriage of the car as I drove down that bumpy, muddy trail built for a truck. No one warned me when I registered online. At times, I was only going three miles an hour. It takes almost five hours to go thirteen miles at three miles an hour. Fortunately, at other times I could make up time, but it did take a while and I decided as finally arrived and parked my car, that I would go down that road one more time, when I left.
Silence, Reading, Praying Like in the Old West
Retreats like these are often in silence, alone, with much reading and much praying. This was no different for I was out in the desert wilderness by day, in prayer and reading by kerosene lamp by night as I built my fire to keep warm. I prayed and ate with the monks, who ate silently while another monk read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. It is an ancient tradition that no one speaks and one person reads when all are eating.
That week, made stronger by my unwillingness to fight against the road, was a powerful time of communing with the Lord and of speaking deep prayer aloud into the wilderness to the God who calls us all to know him in a powerful way.
Dr. Peter Kreeft, John’s Gospel and Writing
Boston College philosophy professor Dr. Peter Kreeft is a prolific writer. He uses his Socratic writing skills to teach…medium.com
The terrain reminded me of an episode of the original Star Trek series, when Kirk had to fight a creature called Korn on a planet that looked a lot like the desert south west.
It was a life changing experience.
I encountered God on that personal level that Cardinal Sarah calls us all to do. This is the point of his writing. He does not want people to go bonk people on their heads, but calls priests and bishops to come to a deeper experience of Christ on this profound personal sub-material level and to let all our actions flow out of this. It is as if we were being nourished by an underwater spring that allowed us to act in the real world differently than those who had only the city tap water to drink.
It is through silent prayer, meditation and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, through which we experience the dynamics of an inner strength that leads us to an inner strength. This is what the Cardinal is saying to priests. You must be in touch with that spiritual force and let that transform you and your ministry. That spiritual force is Christ.
No one who does not understand this, can understand his words. He is not calling us to live as the evangelicals who scream to people they are sinners and castigates them daily. He is calling us to live from a whole new perspective of life and use that to preach a love that only comes from that source, a source he calls all of us to have. We need to be in touch with that source first in order to be strengthened by it. That source comes from prayerful contemplation fostered in silence.
After reading Cardinal Sarah’s Book, I reserved a night at St. Mary’s Monastery in Petersham, Massachusetts for more silence. It was great.
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