If it is the Lord really working through our thoughts, he will persist despite our attempts to dismiss them. If, as is much more likely, it is our own mind seeking to insert themselves into the contemplative work, these insights will usually fade away once we seriously seek to dismiss them. Thus I have found it quite safe, and pleasing to the Lord, to say to the Him: Lord if these thoughts and images are really from you, you insist on them. But since it is more likely that I am the source of them and they are interfering with Your work in me, I will continue quietly to push them aside. –“When the Well Runs Dry: Prayer Beyond the Beginnings” Father Thomas H. Green
As I have returned to school in order to complete my bachelor’s degree in order to teach, I came across the writings of Frederick Douglass, reading ‘The Heroic Slave’. The name was always there, a part of my lexicon of historical names; however, honestly I never read him. I was overpowered by his mastery as a writer. The ability to convey the profound while telling an engaging dramatic story captured me. I wanted to share a paragraph.
“What, then, is life to me? it is aimless and worthless, and worse than worthless. Those birds, perched on yon swinging boughs, in friendly conclave, sounding forth their merry notes in seeming worship of the rising sun, though liable to the sportsman’s fowling-piece, are still my superiors. They live free, though they may die slaves. They fly where they list by day, and retire in freedom at night. But what is freedom to me, or I to it? I am a slave,—born a slave, an abject slave,—even before I made part of this breathing world, the scourge was platted for my back; the fetters were forged for my limbs. How mean a thing am I. That accursed and crawling snake, that miserable reptile, that has just glided into its slimy home, is freer and better off than I. He escaped my blow, and is safe. But here am I, a man,—yes, a man!—with thoughts and wishes, with powers and faculties as far as angel’s flight above that hated reptile, —yet he is my superior, and scorns to own me as his master, or to stop to take my blows. When he saw my uplifted arm, he darted beyond my reach, and turned to give me battle. I dare not do as much as that. I neither run nor fight, but do meanly stand, answering each heavy blow of a cruel master with doleful wails and piteous cries. I am galled with irons; but even these are more tolerable than the consciousness, the galling consciousness of cowardice and indecision. Can it be that I dare not run away? Perish the thought, I dare do anything which may be done by another. When that young man struggled with the waves for life, and others stood back appalled in helpless horror, did I not plunge in, forgetful of life, to save his? The raging bull from whom all others fled, pale with fright, did I not keep at bay with a single pitchfork? Could a coward do that? No,— no,—I wrong myself,—I am no coward. Liberty I will have, or die in the attempt to gain it. This working that others may live in idleness! This cringing submission to insolence and curses! This living under the constant dread and apprehension of being sold and transferred, like a mere brute, is too much for me. I will stand it no longer. What others have done, I will do. These trusty legs, or these sinewy arms shall place me among the free. Tom escaped; so can I. The North Star will not be less kind to me than to him. I will follow it. I will at least make the trial. I have nothing to lose. If I am caught, I shall only be a slave. If I am shot, I shall only lose a life which is a burden and a curse. If I get clear, (as something tells me I shall,) liberty, the inalienable birth-right of every man, precious and priceless, will be mine. My resolution is fixed. I shall be free.”
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
No one chooses his end. And yet, God allows doctors to shorten lives. When I asked Dom David about this subject, a silence came over the room where we had been speaking for so many hours: “Today, the problem of sedation is serious. We have to fight against intolerable sufferings. But if we do not feel pain anymore, life goes away. Now, with the progress of analgesics, we no longer feel anything. We no longer feel life. We no longer feel humanity. We no longer feel God approaching. Man becomes an abstract machine. Several brothers wanted to write instructions for the end of life. They refuse life-prolonging interventions, and they do not want deep sedation. We would all like to die in our sleep. The doctors induce artificial comas to be certain that the patient does not suffer anymore. Fear is a bad counselor. It is the ultimate antithesis of faith. Our materialist societies have an irrepressible obsession with pain. Why has our world forgotten that life does not exist without suffering? In the West, we are well-off, and we have trouble imagining the daily lives of the vast majority of mankind. How should I react when a ninety-year-old monk asks for a hearing aid? How should I react when this investment of three thousand euros could help twenty people in an African village? How should I react when ninety-five-year-old brother asks for new dentures? When you consider we eat mostly eggs, fish, and little meat There are hypochondriac monks. These are weaknesses. If a brother agrees to work on this weakness, a big step is made. His fault is shocking, but God pardons everything.” So does Dom David. His patience is immense.
En-Calcat is an oasis that one leaves with regret. To remember that time, it is enough for me to listen to Dom David one last time. In I986, when he returned to the abbey after a first unsuccessful attempt, he had the sense of being in mourning. The young brother entered into monastic life in order to be as close as possible to the cross. He did not leave a love-interest behind him, and yet, it took him a year to regain interior joy. Every brother experiences, in his own way, a widowhood.
Entering a monastery is the first step toward death. Every day, Dom David reflects on his last hour: “When I am face to face with the Grim Reaper, I might not have the courage to look at him. But I do not see him as a threat. Death is a passage toward Christ. I hope that the son of God will come to take me by the hand. There is a Hindu allegory about the last moments that I particularly like. It distinguishes young monkeys from kittens, The latter wait without doing anything for their mother to take them in her mouth, while the little monkeys cling to their to go from branch to branch t. At the hour of death, the monk would like to be a kitten in the mouth of Christ,” mother in order carried in the mouth of Christ.
“A Time to Die: Monks of the Threshold of Eternal Life” — Nicholas Diat
The Monk and Death by Wenceslaus Hollar 1651. Art Institute of Chicago collection
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