Personal Prayer

I have been somewhat putting off writing this blog, but there are only three more to go and I feel the moment is upon me. Personal prayer has, of course, been a vital part of my discernment. My difficulty is that that I don't have a method and I'm back in murky waters trying to convey anything about my personal prayer life. I don't have anything against methods, and I know many people find them helpful. For several years, I used to believe that if I could only find the right method a whole new world of certainty about divine mysteries would open up. I have, however, generally found myself either distracted by my consciousness of the method. Method thus became a barrier rather than assistance in my prayer life. The fact of needing a special method made prayer seem difficult.

One happy day, the thought crossed my mind that there was God, all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing, and here was little me, with none of those attributes, and exactly how hard was God going to make it for me? I steer clear of descriptions of God because our human perception and vocabulary can't describe the Infinite, but I do feel confident to say that God is not petty. This enables me to see my prayer life simply. Simplicity is the key. Everything about God is simple. We make the complications. We erect the barriers. Often that's a defence, because identifying complexity often means being able to argue that I would do what I think God is asking, but..., when God is actually suggesting simply that I DO IT.

This insight has really freed me in my personal prayer life. Sometimes I talk to God one on one (this includes complaining, asking, questioning, expressing gratitude, being angry, etc.); sometimes I just sit in silence and let whatever happpens happen: I let myself be in God. If my mind drifts, I offer the drift to God. In the last few years, I have re-discovered the value of devotional prayers, such as the rosary. I don't think God scores me on how I approach my prayer. I feel the important thing, as in so many aspects of life, is perseverance: keep on praying even when it's hard, when it's dry, when there is no answer. The purpose of my prayer is to help me enter more closely into the divine mystery and that means, frequently, praying into the darkness.

Obedience

I'm posting early because I shall be absent from my computer for a week doing some intensive study and reflection with my director. This means you will have about 10 days to ponder monastic obedience before my next post.

 It seems as if everyone has a view about what the promise of monastic obedience means. Usually it's seen as doing what you are told, and it's often implied that, in order to promise it, you have to be the kind of person who is unquestioning and quite happy to give up thinking for themselves. Well, it's not like that at all.

Firstly, it's important to see all the monastic promises as being made in the context of free will. As a consenting, adult person, I am choosing this life. I am choosing  to make these promises. I shall make them publicly on July 11, but every day of my life thereafter I shall be consciously recommitting myself to the choice and the promise. So, I am always freely obedient.

Secondly, monastic obedience isn't merely doing what you are told. It is not about being asked to suspend your intelligence and judgment. Essentially, it is about mutual listening. So, for example,  if you are asked to take on a new ministry, the question would only be put to you after the prioress or superior had prayerfully considered what the community needed and who might be the person to fulfill that need. The sister would then, in turn, be asked to discern the matter. The possibility exists to explain why you think this might not be a good fit, and to ask for it to be reconsidered. What I'm trying to show here is that monastic obedience is interactive and inter-personal. It's seminal to our life in community, which is underpinned by love and respect for the other. Therefore, it's not intended to negate anyone, but to enable the possibilities that flow from learning not to put ourselves first.

Finally, it's important to remember that, ultimately, our obedience is to God, and that always means taking a risk. In answering this call to make perpetual profession, I am certain that I am accepting an invitation from God and, in that sense, I think I'm right to do it. I'm right ... but in the dark. I don't know where it will lead, I don't know what the final outcome will be. But I am prepared to be obedient to it, trusting in God  that all shall be well: that through stability in the way of life, daily trying consciously to turn my life toward God (conversatio) and being obedient to what I hear God asking of me, I will become increasingly aware of the divine mystery permeating all creation.

Stability

Stability is the promise which roots us as monastics. It's important to realize what stability is NOT about: it is not about geographical stability (being rooted to the spot); it is not about becoming stagnant and resistant to change.
So, what is the underlying meaning of the promise of stability? When I make this promise, I will understand that I commit myself to a way of life which is ordered by the Rule of Benedict. I will commit myself to this community, following the Rule, under the prioress elected by the community. In making this commitment, I don't have a guarantee that I will never live anywhere other than the motherhouse at Saint Benedict's Monastery. I could be asked to serve elsewhere but, in doing so, I would remain stable in my commitment because I would be serving (under obedience) where the community felt I was most needed. My commitment isn't to the place, but to the community, the way of life and, ultimately, to God.

The monastic promises flow into one another. It isn't really accurate to view them separately because they are three aspects of one commitment: the search for God. My promise of stability means that I commit myself in the long term to living Benedictine monastic life. Far from that meaning I will not change, it means that I commit myself to a way of life which will me enable to grow and to become more aware of God as I live into the other promises of fidelity to the monastic way of life (conversatio) and obedience. One of the ways, I have found it most helpful to characterize stability is to look at it as stability of purpose. It's been noticeable to me in these weeks since I was accepted by Chapter that, with one or two blips, it's been a very good feeling to be this side the request, but that my life, as I live it out daily, hasn't changed markedly. This is reassuring because it affirms that I haven't simply been jumping through hoops these past five years: I've really been committing to living the way of life I'm going to live for the rest of my life. This doesn't guard me from the normal ups and downs of life. I'm still going to experience life as an ordinary person, with an ordinary person's reactions, but through all, however I am feeling, will run the thread of stability which roots me in my primary purpose in choosing this way of life: seeking God.

Inclusions

 As well as commitment to constant conversion and growth,  poverty and chastity are also included in the monastic promise of fidelity to the monastic way of life (conversatio). I've titled this blog Inclusions not just because these two aspects are included in the promise, but because they are often thought to be about issues of exclusion - what is given up or not done. In fact, both poverty and chastity are positives, not negatives; they are about choosing ways to live one's life which enable focus and growth in the search for God.

Monastic poverty is not about destitution. The Gospel does not tell us that it is a good thing to live in abject poverty. Indeed, destitution like this hampers the search for God because we become totally focused on our immediate physical needs. Monastic poverty has two aspects: moderation and common ownership. As you might expect of an aspect of conversatio, poverty is something you have to work at, to choose each day what is enough and what is surplus to need. Those choices are made in a context of complete dependency on the monastery for everything. So, for instance, those working in compensated employment outside the monastery do not take their own salary; it goes into a common pot from which each woman is given according to her need. It also means that not everyone receives exactly the same because each woman is an individual and needs vary. Monastic poverty is thus a way of ensuring that needs are met in a spirit of moderation and the community bond is enhanced because none of us owns anything privately and we each depend on the others for what we have.

Chastity is not the same as celibacy. A married couple is chastely married if they remain faithful to one another and to the marriage vows. Celibate chastity, which is what monastics promise, means that monastics don't marry and refrain from sexual activity. We don't make this promise in a spirit of negation, but as a positive choice to channel our sexual energy in a different way. We love and we have deep relationships. Healthy people need to love and be loved; healthy monastics are no different in this respect. The intention behind celibate chastity is not to stop us having friendships or establishing bonds of trust and love with others, but to enable an intentional focus on building a loving relationship with God. This, in turn, will fuel loving relationships with others and, at its finest, generate love for the whole of creation.

The Gift of Gnats

I've recovered from last week's bout of feeling badly done to and I'm ready to start with some zest on my series of blogs about the monastic promises. I'm going to begin with the promise which is currently translated as "fidelity to the monastic way of life" and in the past as "conversion of life". In the Latin of Benedict's Rule, the phrase is "conversatio morum", which is difficult to render precisely. What is important to grasp is that it does not  imply a one-off conversion, but a repeated effort to change, to grow, to live more deeply into the mystery of God. I decided to begin with this promise because last week's blog is an example of conversatio (as it's often referred to) in action.

Let me explain. Conversatio is about taking the daily, the routine, all the events of our lives, big and small (mostly small) and allowing the Spirit to work through them to draw us closer to God. Living in community is difficult. Being a monastic is difficult. You are with people most of the time. They don't always behave as you'd prefer. You live under obedience which, as we'll see in the obedience blog, doesn't mean you are voiceless, but it does mean you have to be able to relinquish control and live fully, not grudgingly, into situations and with decisions that you would not necessarily have made. You can look at these situations and be irritated, like I was last week, or you can accept them and choose to allow yourself to let their hugeness go, see them in perspective and come to understand that, in the eyes of God, they are not significant. The events are not significant in themselves; how you respond is.

When I was novice and I was very exercised by a number of issues, a sister gave me this piece of advice: Monastic life is like walking through a cloud of gnats. If you stop to swat each gnat you will never get anywhere. You just have to keep walking through them. It's true. You have to keep your eyes fixed on the goal, which is God. You have to keep persevering toward that goal, and not be distracted from it by the gnats, which at times can form a thick cloud of "I don't likes" and "I don't agrees". It's also true, though, that if you keep walking, persevering, eventually it pays off and you realize, for a blessed moment, that you are actually making some headway, and the gnats are, in fact, opportunities for grace: the daily happenings which bring about your transformation, if you approach them right. That's the gift of gnats. Of course, a new set of gnats arrives and the process repeats... and repeats... and repeats...

Coffee Break

I'm not going to start on the monastic promises this week after all. I've been finding this period between being accepted for perpetual profession and actually making it rather unsettling. I very much want to profess, but I also want to feel on Cloud 9 about it, and I wasn't really feeling that. Life somehow seemed to be getting in the way, not big things, but not quite as I wanted it. In the back of my head a little voice kept whispering that these niggles were opportunities for grace, for transformation, for putting the needs of others before my own. In response a much louder voice shouted back, " I don't want these opportunities right now." The other day, I was feeling really quite down about things and I wanted someone to read my mind and make it right.

In this frame of mind, I enter the sisters' break room for my mid-morning break.
I pour a cup of coffee. A sister shares a piece about Easter by John Chrysostom. I feel better. I sit down. She compliments me on last week's blog. I tell her it feels different writing the blog now that my request to make perpetual profession has been accepted. It had become a discernment tool for a very specific purpose and now that purpose is fulfilled. I have things I can write about, but I'm experiencing a certain emptiness. She says, "Well, say that. Say it." So I am, and I feel better. It's not just to do with the blog (that's a symptom) but to do with my life situation, and I feel better for saying it. Another sisters says she works like a 'J' on the Myers Briggs, but she isn't really a 'J'. I'm surprised. I'm the same. I feel better. I say I have reservations about these personality tests because they can end up by putting people in boxes. One or two sisters agree. I feel better. Still on the subject of boxes, we talk about finding cardboard boxes to pack things in for an office move. I feel better. I put my cup in the dishwasher. A sister comments to me that she and I and a few others have the absurd gene, which is a gift, because it it helps you survive in community. Maybe we should start a group - Absurd Sisters? I feel better. I chat with another sister. I tell her some of my miseries. We start to laugh about it. I feel better.

Were these women reading my mind after all? Maybe these things that have loomed so large are, actually, pretty small? Maybe I can use them as opportunities for grace and transformation. Well, at least I could have a go and, as John Chrysostom tells me, just having a go is enough.

So, I want to end by saying "thank you" to the break room sisters for helping me rediscover my equilibrium. I'm looking forward to profession and I'm looking forward to life continuing to happen in the weeks leading up to July 11.

Promise, Profession and Perseverance

Two months until I make perpetual profession on July 11. There's a lot to do in terms of invitations, preparing for the practical details of the ceremony, really all the logistics of getting ready for any big celebration. There's also a deeper level of preparation which focuses on the promises I'll be making.

Until I started exploring Benedictine monasticism, I thought all religious orders made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. However, monastics in the Benedictine tradition promise stability, obedience and fidelity to the monastic way of life. The latter includes, but is not limited to, poverty and chastity. In these next few weeks I'm going to share a little about what these promises mean.

Before reflecting on each specific promise, I want to say something about what it means to make these promises. Profession is a public expression of the personal commitment that I am making to God, to this community, and to this way of life as the means of seeking God. Profession is not a sacrament in the way that baptism or marriage would be regarded as a sacrament, but it is a solemn act made before God and before witnesses in which I declare my intention to give my life to God through living the three monastic promises. There are two important elements: making the promises and then living them. The promises are not a formula which a woman recites to gain admittance to a society, but the declaration of an intention to live a way of life for her whole life. Profession is a moment in time, but the intention contained in that moment is to persevere in seeking God into eternity.

It is going to be a challenge to distill each promise in the next few weeks, because they are not really separate: each links into the other. I have reflected on the promises a lot during my years at the monastery and my understanding has developed over time. I hope this will continue, so please don't take what I'm now going to say as the final word on the subject. However, it seems to me that the unifying force within the promises is love. Ultimately, each one helps us, if we persevere, to move away from putting ourselves first, and enables us to develop our capacity to love beyond ourselves