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A Lay Cistercian Looks at Spiritual Reality
If you think I am some kind of religious fanatic, let me assure you that I am not. What this blog topic is about is ten days of contemplation using the Lectio Divina method. I didn’t always have success at waiting for God, which is what contemplation is all about. I didn’t spend all day fixated on how I would get angry if God did not talk to me. Now, that would be a fanatic. As an aspiring Lay Cistercian, I try to do Lectio Divina (lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio) for at least twenty minutes a day. I only profess to be a beginner at this, so many times I don’t contemplate more than twenty minutes. I am growing, imperceptibly, to a deeper practice, but it takes time. The Lectio Divina stages, or rungs in the ladder, are based on Guido II’s steps to enter the inner self through contemplation. http://www.umilta.net/ladder.html
The key here is doing Lectio every day without fail, even if all you have to show for it is the time you put into it. This reminds me very much of a book I read called The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, particularly as it refers to the advice the fox gives to The Little Prince on the meaning of friendship and the time it takes to develop it. I recommend that you go on-line and read the chapter. http://www.angelfire.com/hi/littleprince/framechapter21.html
Once you have read it, do you see any similarities between taming and contemplation? Isn’t that a beautiful explanation of invisible reality and the power of persistent contemplation? It works!
Just like the Little Prince, I waited each day for God to be with me, not just in my mind, and my heart but my whole self. (Deuteronomy 6 and Matthew 22:37.)
Read two important quotes from The Little Prince.
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
“What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
“It is the time I have wasted for my rose–” said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
It is the time I took in contemplation to be in the presence of The One who is beyond cancer, and has conquered death, that is important. There is no wasted time in contemplation. I said it once more, so that I would be sure to remember.
• Contemplation is part of a five-step process. I don’t just jump into contemplation right away.
• Contemplation is all about feelings not the mind, like being wrapped in a warm, security blanket with The One.
• In contemplation, no words are spoken, no thoughts to drive my personal agenda, and no images in my mind to explore how the lectio (Phil 2:5) would look.
• Lectio is about reading the Word.
• Meditatio is about how that Word impacts my life.
• Oratio is asking that the Word be made flesh in my life.
• Contemplatio is waiting for God to share His energy with me on how to love with all my heart, all my mind, and all my strength.
• Actio (recommended by Pope Benedict XVI) is doing what God instructs me to perform.
THE THREE IMPERATIVES FOR CANCER PATIENTS
While in contemplation, here it what came to me, without my leading God, so to speak.
1. Don’t be afraid. That is exactly what happened to me, when I began to rationalize all the possible worst-case scenarios about dying. I had lost control of my life, not realizing that I never did have full control over it, My thoughts went to the times in Scriptures when angels appeared to Elizabeth and then Mary (Luke 1:13, 31). They sought to calm down Elizabeth and Mary. How would you react, if you saw an angel standing before you? Don’t be afraid, they all said. I think that statement is significant because it shows how sensitive God is to our feelings. This statement just popped into my hear, out of the blue. This is not just the intellectual statement of not being afraid, it is the warm feeling that everything is as it should be and I am going to be alright. All this happened in an instant.
This first statement is the perfect way God would approach me. A gentle way, one which takes into account my wild rides of emotion and intellectual instability when facing serious illness or death. Don’t be afraid is what God would say to us as He meets us for the first time. He did that to me. But there is more…
2. I am with you. God’s response to me in the depths of my being was: Don’t be afraid. I am with you. This was not just any I. This was the only I there is, as in, I AM THE ONE WHO IS. If God is with me, I thought, who can be against me. All of this happened instantaneously.
If you don’t hold to all this God business, you have your family who is with you as you confront the cancer phase of your life, you until you die.
I find it a strength in my struggle to believe all this, that someone who lives in three universes (physical, mental, spiritual) is my friend, even to the point of making me an adopted son. If you have a friend, you want to be with him or her, want to be close to them, to share the joy and happiness of their presence. That is the way I feel about God communicating with this broken-down, old Temple of the Holy Spirit.
• God with me means I can live whatever time I have to the fullest.
• God with me means I can share with family and friends that death is not the end, but a door to be opened.
• God with me means I am humbled by the fact that Jesus became one of us, suffered (like those who have cancer) and died so that we could live…Forever as adopted daughters and sons of the Father.
• God with me means I can sit in silence and solitude and wait for God to approach me when He wants, knowing that I am valued.
• If God is with me, who can be against me, even with cancer or cardiac arrest.
• If God is with me, life is good, even if my road is rocky; at least I know I am on the right path.
But there is more…
3. Good and faithful servant, come share your Lord’s joy.
My contemplative experience gave me great joy, which may seem like an oxymoron. How can you have joy, when you have cancer? How can you experience fierce love, when you know you will die, maybe sooner than later, but you will die. Remember there are two meanings for joy: the worldly one, and the spiritual one. In the worldly one, joy means, among other things, happiness with your family, contentment that you have run a good race with your life, and the satisfaction that you are leaving the world a better place than you found it (if that is so).
Joy, in the spiritual sense, is a sign of contradiction. It means you have happiness with your family, contentment that you have run a good race with your life, and the satisfaction that you are leaving the world a better place than you found it (if that is so). Plus, you look forward to continuing that joy with your loved ones and your positive experiences of what life is all about, in Heaven…Forever.
In my contemplation, I had feelings of great joy and contentment, that I was on the right road, and that the words of Jesus to all of us were true, “Come, Good and Faithful Servants, share your Lord’s joy.”
FINALITY
There were three parts to my contemplatio, all experienced with great security, joy and peace. Compared to anything I will face during the rest of my life, even should it be the end of the world, I am with someone who will lead me, if I sit silently and alone in the silence of my heart.
The scary thing for me is, I know that I have only scratched the surface in contemplating the riches God has given us. As St. Thomas Aquinas, probably the greatest mind to explore how we interact with God, is said to have written before he died, “I can write no more. All that I have written seems like straw.”
When I deal with cancer or cardiac arrest, or any other ailment, I will always keep my experience of the three in mind:
a. Don’t be afraid.
b. I am with you.
c. Come, share Your Lord’s Joy.
The Center for contemplative practice 