Charity, Contemplation, and Change

“If you want with a few words to benefit one who is eager to learn, speak to him about prayer, right faith, and the patient acceptance of what comes. For all else that is good is found in these.” The Philokalia[1]

The Philokalia [ancient Greek meaning love of the beautiful and good] is a collection of texts written between the 4th and 15th centuries by spiritual masters of the Eastern Orthodox Church mystical hesychast tradition. They were originally written for the guidance and instruction of monks in the practice of the contemplative life.

The contemplative life?

The contemplative life is not just for monks and nuns living in monasteries. It is not just for religious desert dwelling hermits.

It is for anyone. It is for anyone who is earnestly and eagerly seeking to live in an ever-increasing awareness of the love of God. It is for anyone who is earnestly and eagerly seeking to put the foolishness and confusion of the world behind them. It is, as well and more importantly, for anyone who is earnestly and eagerly seeking to put aside the foolishness and confusion that is too much a part of the divisions and subdivisions that represent these modern popular versions of Christianity.

The contemplative life changes a person.

The contemplative life is for anyone who desires to live a life of simply following in the sandal prints of Jesus. The initial action and activity of the contemplative life is to personally experience the love that God is. The outflow of experiencing the love that God is will always manifest itself in ways that refuse to model the attitudes and actions of a humanity motivated by pride, greed, and the other five cardinal sins – the sins that are the root of every other sin and the cause of every human injustice.

The love that God is, on the other hand, refuses to propagate and perpetuate any form of injustice. The more we experience the love that God is, something that requires us to set ourselves and our own ambitions in the world aside in preference of this greater love that God is, the more we desire to experience more of this love that God is. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.[2]

1 Corinthians 13 is pretty explicit about what charity does and does not do.

Without this charity, I am nothing. Without this charity, none of us are anything except more noise in an already too noisy world. I can say that I have faith. I can say that I have hope. But if I do not live in the charity that God is, I am nothing. Without this charity, my faith and hope become easily centered in the nothingness of myself. In this nothingness of myself, faith and hope are in vain.

Saint Benedict’s life, besides being noted as the founder of monasticism in the West, is also characterized by the many miracles that he performed.[3] Benedict developed such a closeness with God during his cave-dwelling years that miracles followed him as a supernatural outflow.

What Benedict began and referred to as a school of the Lord’s service[4] was not primarily a list of rules and regulations [though it does include them] but rather an environment supported by standards where people could experience, develop, and grow in the love that God is. He says of this school, “The good of all concerned, however, may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love. Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.”[5]

I began reading and studying Benedict’s Rule in late 2005. In 2006 I proverbially knocked on the door at Saint Bernard Abbey where I was accepted into the Oblate Novitiate. In September of 2007, I made my Final Promise, literally signing it on the side altar before the Tabernacle, and was there received into the Benedictine community as an Oblate of Saint Benedict.

I have not always endeavored to be a model Oblate, nor do I make any claim toward being one. There have been seasons, to my own feet-of-clay fault, where I have been extremely negligent. I have never, however, once considered rescinding my Promise. I would never consider rescinding my Oblate Promise any more than I would consider renouncing my Catholic faith.

The quote from The Philokalia has been stuck in my head since first reading it a few weeks ago. The truths inherent in the quote fit so well in the scheme of the developing scenario that is our life, a scenario that now includes actively pursuing a significant geographical change in the not-so-distant future.

[1] The Philokalia [ancient Greek meaning love of the beautiful and good] is a collection of texts written between the 4th and 15th centuries by spiritual masters of the Eastern Orthodox Church mystical hesychast tradition. They were originally written for the guidance and instruction of monks in the practice of the contemplative life. [2] 1 Corinthians 13:13 [3] The Life of Saint Benedict by Saint Gregory records the miracles of Saint Benedict [4] Holy Rule, Prologue 45 [5] Holy Rule, Prologue 47-49