Yesterday, the idea tantalized throughout that I am living a life I do not want to. My will glorifies in a retreat to the monastic life in North Dakota. It would be a splendor. I am positive God would bless the endeavor. A full concentration upon the expansion of faith, hope, and charity within the mature confines of Assumption Abbey would produce good contemplative fruit, a disposition seeking the source and summit of Catholicism through daily life centered upon the Eucharist. The comfort of wide open spaces geographically assuaging; dominant sky and expansive rolling tundra offering an ambiance of grandeur. The purposeful community provides stellar developed religious fellowship. There is not the slightest questioning of authenticity. I would pack my bags tomorrow if it were of my doing. I have become convinced that certain chosen contemplatives must desire in their heart and mind the monastic life. The consecrated life under total obedience to the Church, vows and permanency rigidly entrenched, must be held as a fantasy presenting ultimate freedom; a possibility of sublime potentiality. Thoughts of the cloistered monastic life have always existed within the mind of the contemplative. The realization that a full attentiveness to faith, hope, and charity, isolated from the world, protected by the Church, gratifies their deepest needs—strengthens and invigorates their every breath. It is a rhythm, a heartbeat, within the madness of the world.
Sad eyes, sad eyes, where you going with that confidence? I am going to where the call divides…Still waters laying over, still waters laying over….wild eyes in the wilderness where you going with the devil in hand? Going to build the bridges high for work and money…building bridges high…the river far away…going to where the rain falls to find my brother, to find my brother.
Concretely establishing the consecrated life as a healthy lovely longing, I open myself to the voice of God, imaginary perfection no longer entertains. The devil does not deceive through good intention and imagination. My ways become closer to the ways of God. Within this doing, I clearly recognize the solidity to a presence; deeper thoughts and behavior emerging, when I embrace working with the Hospice of Western Reserve. Now is a time of further waiting, patience. My paperwork is being processed, demanding further days passing. I bite upon the chomp, hungry to begin, aching to offer myself in servitude. Life demands I wait longer. I see the time as critical (maybe all time is critical). It is a time to further establish virtue, to prove my genuineness; the conducting of proper thought and behavior, attending to daily mass, prayer, and adoration, while also giving myself to my new employer. The effort loses selfishness, becoming something done for brother and sister, a calling allowing devotedness to blossom within acts of love and giving, fellowship and sharing nurturing amidst the structure and organization of the world, philanthropic while remaining dependent, lowly as I answer to hierarchy and authority, troubled by the demands of the world, struggles and exhaustion from work and worries, unsatisfied demands and loneliness all placed lovingly upon the burdens by the most loving of Creators.
Carried away by the gentle wind of the Spirit of God, the soul breaks through the limits of knowledge (i.e. speculative knowledge) to let love have full play. Freed from every hindrance, charity penetrates more deeply than intellect. Charity has confidence in the Spirit of Love, trusts in Love’s initiatives, is carried along into the deep mysteries clouded in the darkness of faith. Love no longer stops short at the concepts or propositions by which the Divine is revealed to us, but rather goes deep into its mysterious and hidden reality. –Father Thomas Philippe ‘The Fire of Contemplation’.
