DON’T BE AFRAID

Several years ago, I was part of a discussion at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit (Trappist) centered around humility. St. Benedict has twelve steps to achieve humility which is Chapter 7 of his Rule. Humility does not come automatically. Like human love, Erich Fromm says in his Art of Loving that we must learn how to love by practice. Some people get it, and some don’t. If you want humility in your heart, you must put it there. This is the Art of Contemplative Practice, doing Cistercian practices and charisms to place yourself in the presence of Christ and wait for the Holy Spirit to overshadow you.

One of the most important reasons that I always say “Wait” for the Holy Spirit has to do with humility. In Chapter 7 of the Rule, St. Benedict has twelve steps to achieve humility for his monks. Because of original sin’s effects, humans always have a penchant for asking God to meet them as though they (humans) order God around. “I’ll pray,” Lord, “but you have to give me what I want.” That first step in chapter seven of the Rule has to do with “Fear of the Lord.” Our discussion about humility began with how to fear the Lord. Some people said it means we must be afraid of God, which is true to some extent. I chimed in that I thought St. Benedict was trying to instill in his monks not to boss God around with all their practices and prayers, as though we are doing God some sort of favor. Remember, it is God we are asking to sit down on a park bench in the middle of winter and overshadow us with his Faith. Fear of the Lord is respecting that God is divine and we are human, that God is God and we are adopted sons and daughters of the Father through Faith.

TEMPTATIONS I CONFRONTED WHEN PLACING MYSELF IN CHRIST’S PRESENCE

1. CHRIST IS NOT ON THE CLOCK –Being present to Christ is unlike a chess match, where each move is clocked. One of my early expectations, and still creeps in from time to time, is that Christ is there for me in my time. Indeed, Christ is there for me, but it is disrespectful for me to think, “Your time is my time.” This is a subtle act of control, very common in the work world in which we live.
2. CHRIST SAID HE WOULD GIVE ME WHATEVER I ASK, SO I CAN ASK FOR ANYTHING — You have read the passage from the Scriptures that says, “Ask anything in my name and I will give it to you.” Literally, if you ask something, you expect it because it says so in Scripture and, therefore, must be infallible. Try it sometime. Ask to win the Lottery or to have your neighbor lose all their money because they slighted you. God knows what each of us needs and gives that to us when we ask in humility, but maybe not in the way we anticipate or the timeframe we expect. When I began my Lay Cistercian journey, I had a somewhat considerable background in theology. I had to realize who God is and that, once again, in life, I had to start from the beginning (although, in fairness, I carry with me the accumulated experiences of my daily attempts to discover what it means to grow in being human (capacitas dei)). I did grow, and Christ did answer my prayers in silence and solitude, but it was like drinking concentrated orange juice (bitter) until I added the water from a lifetime of struggling to keep Christ as my one Christ Principle at my center.
3. BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN AND YET BELIEVE. — I have never seen the face of God, nor the face of Christ, for that matter. I have no idea what the Holy Spirit looks like, although all three persons of the Trinity figure prominently in how I approach life using THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. Abandoning my reliance on reality (two universes of the physical and mental), I actually experience the presence of Love from outside of myself, a Love that overshadows me and calms down the reliance on the promises of the World to show me its way to being fully human.

Fear of the Lord is not being afraid of the Lord as much as, with humility and obedience to what I know God shares with me, to give glory to the Father, and to the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. The God who is, who was, and who will come at the end of the ages. Amen.

Is being in the presence of God a waste of time? I hope so. The folly of God is wiser than all the wisdom of humans put together.

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