Undistracted Stillness In A World Caving In

Pentecost Sunday.

I mentioned in my most recent video and podcast that we are living in dangerous times. Every news outlet, every social media platform, is full of the sounds and images of the rotten fruits of darkness being manifested in these times. These are also exciting times when considering the platforms that are available to convey the good news contained in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!

The atmosphere is charged with the urgency of the moment. The most real urgency that arises is the necessity that we have as followers of Jesus.

Today, of all the days on the Church calendar, is more than a reflection on an event that occurred fifty days after Jesus ascended to heaven. It is a clarion call … a strongly expressed demand or request for action … to all who profess to know Jesus. It is a clarion call to be filled with and live consciously in the Holy Spirit. It is a clarion call to allow the Holy Spirit to empower and charismatically gift us so that we can be Christ’s representatives in this modern age that is caving in upon itself.

One of the sad realities of this modern age is that Christianity has been so enculturated by the ways of the world. Christians have become so caught up in the ways of the world that the difference being made by Christianity is so marginal that it causes me to constantly examine myself to ensure that I am honestly living in the way of Christ rather than in some subverted aberration of it. “Try your own selves if you be in the faith; prove ye yourselves. Know you not your own selves, that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you be reprobate.” [2 Corinthians 13:5]

I am reminded of something that Jesus said. “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” [Matthew 11:12]

John came onto the scene challenging the status-quo of what had become of the Jewish faith. “And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them: Ye brood of vipers, who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance.” [Matthew 3:7-8] Jesus came onto the scene both fulfilling and continuing the challenge saying, “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” [Matthew 4:17]

The simple truth of the matter is that if we hope or expect to live in the kingdom of heaven in the afterlife then, of necessity, we are going to have to live in this life in a way that honors our hopes and expectations in the afterlife.

As I watch the unfolding of these dangerous times, it makes me ever so much more thankful that we live in this tiny hermitage tucked away in the woods, at the end of this one lane road, and well apart from the insane main flow of human traffic. It makes a great observation station to view contemporary events from a distance. Even more so, it makes a great long-term prayer retreat – something akin to the hermit cells sought by the monachos [solitaries] of the early centuries where they lived and viewed themselves as voluntary religious exiles.

Evagrios spoke to me as I read his words in the Philokalia last night.

Indeed, I urge you to welcome exile. It frees you from all the entanglements of your own locality, and allows you to enjoy the blessings of stillness undistracted. Do not stay in a town, but persevere in the wilderness. “Lo,’ says the Psalm, ‘then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness.’” [Psalm 55:7] If possible, do not visit a town at all. For you will find there nothing of benefit, nothing useful, nothing profitable to your way of life. To quote the Psalm again,‘ I have seen violence and strife in the city.’ [Psalm 55:9] So seek out places that are free from distraction, and solitary. – Evagrios the Solitary A.D. 345 – 399.

We pray, not only on this calendared remembrance of Pentecost, but more so as a daily communion in the Holy Spirit -

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.