CAPACITAS DEI: Transformational Spirituality in the School of Love.

I am not the same person as a Lay Cistercian, as I was when I began that incredible journey from what I considered myself to be a reasonably pious Catholic to what I am now. As St. Benedict rightly writes in his RB 4:42-43, “If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself, but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge.”

The School of Love or Charity is a term St. Benedict uses to describe moving from false self to true self. If Christ is our Magister Noster (Rabbi or Master), then the Church is the organizational way each century teaches what it means to love others and keep the commandments of Jesus. A book that has helped me with knowledge and a source of inspiration is The Catechism of the Catholic Church. http://www.ecatholic2000.org

In navigating the School of Love in my lifetime, I must carve out time to learn, which means I must be present with my instructors (Jesus and the Holy Spirit). I have chosen and selected by my Gathering to be a Lay Cistercian, a group of spirit-aware men and women who follow the teachings of St. Benedict as interpreted by the Cistercian Order, in particular the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit (Trappist), Conyers, GA. http://www.trappist.net When looking at being a Citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven and acting accordingly, this group helps me focus on silence, solitude, work, and Prayer in the context of community.

LEVELS OF ATTAINMENT

INFORMATION –The School of Love begins with all of us being novices (beginners). We are learning to love as Christ loved us by knowing, practicing, loving, and serving others. Some people call this phase informational because we begin with knowledge. A danger for all Catholics is that their sole idea of what it means to be a follower of Christ is to know. This characterized the early Gnostic heresy and the Neo-Gnostic strains that drifted in and out of Catholic Universal believers. Knowledge is the base, but knowledge alone is insufficient to move to the next step. Some Catholics get stuck in this mindset and don’t grow deeper into that next level (capacitas dei). Knowing is good, but it lacks the power to peer deeper into mystic reality. It takes direction, focus, and time. This is why I am a Lay Cistercian. I don’t want to be held hostage by merely knowing about Christ. There is nothing wrong with knowledge; in fact, we are created in God’s image (knowledge, love, and service) and likeness (ability to choose good or bad for us). The Achilles Heel for Catholics is that we stop growing at the knowledge level and think that is all there is. Knowing, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is necessary for that next step, love, as Christ loved us. We are seduced or lulled into the passivity and comfort of being secure that nothing is beyond knowledge. Suppose we know everything about what it means to be Catholic. In that case, that thinking can obfuscate what the real purpose of Catholicism is, to use knowledge as a gateway to discovering how to love others as Christ loved us.

FORMATION — Several years ago, I met a colleague at Panera’s for coffee. The conversation always turns to religion for some reason. She told me that she did not belong to any organized religion. I asked her what disorganized religion held her attention. She got the point. Knowledge for individuals can be good, but they need to be focused on moving to that next step. The School of Love can mean many things to many people. For me, it has three meanings: a)The Magisterium of the Catholic Church as the Magister Noster of what Christ taught us; b) The Magisterium of the Bishop of my diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee; c) and finally, my Lay Cistercian community of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit (Trappist), where I use the practices and charisms from centuries of how to love Christ through others to enhance how deep I might delve into the mysteries of my humanity using my Baptism status as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father as enlightenment.

As I use it now, the formation is the process that I create around which I meet Christ each day with anticipation of that sharing and enlightenment that I don’t get from secular education alone. With Christ, I learned how to become more human by becoming less reliant on the world as guidelines, good as they are.

For my ongoing formation, I go to Zoom once a month for monthly Gatherings with other Lay Cistercians of Holy Spirit Monastery. I am a part of but apart from monastic life. In a way, it is like being a hermit, responsible for my own schedule, accountable to my community through monthly interactions, and the chance to learn from others about how they have in them the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). No one can have a relationship with Jesus in a vacuum, which implies a one-way street, or NO EXIT. Likewise, humans have a need to belong to this or that. We choose our allegiance based on the motivation of the meaning of love at our center. If my center is just money but God has no place in my heart, that is what my life will reflect. That choice is not necessarily wrong, as it is incomplete regarding my evolution of humanity from simplicity to complexity and what it means to be fully human as nature intended.

Formation is the lifetime process of placing at my center what will move me forward with the energy of my humanity (enlightenment) and Christ’s energy through the Holy Spirit (the pure energy of God). Capacity dei is the formative process of placing what is essential at my center daily. If I want love in my life, I just put it there, just as I put hatred as a choice. To get rid of the false self is called conversio morae by Cistercians (and others) to move to a deeper level of spiritual awareness. This seemingly insignificant act of the will to be present in all things to the one you love is cumulative in that I am not the same person I was yesterday. Christ’s presence to me is a prayer of gratitude for the gift of adoption I received at Baptism, which I renew with the Sacrament of Penance (Frequent Confession). Confession of Sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation is one way Jesus entrusted the Church to ensure that religion is not just knowledge but a conversion of life each time. The Sacraments are intense encounters with the real presence of Christ (The Body of Christ) to give the energy necessary to continue our life’s journey amid the challenges of original sin. Baptism takes away the sin of Adam and restores us to our rightful place as human beings as nature intended. Sacraments Eucharist, or Prayer such as the Liturgy of the Hours, is dull if we just live in the world and read the words or “go to Church.” There must be more to being Catholic. There is, but you must dig for heavenly gold to uncover it. Being Catholic is the easiest of religions on the level of just knowledge alone, but it gets difficult when you must use that knowledge (as in Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict) to be what you believe.

TRANSFORMATION — If using the practices and charisms of Cistercian spirituality, as I know it, to form my approach to being in the presence of Christ through the Holy Spirit is ongoing. The product of just placing myself in the presence of the Real Presence is transformative. Grace flows from Christ to change my false self to my true self (adoption) each time I willingly place myself in the presence of God and then just wait. Meditation is when I control the content and agenda based on my perceptions of Sacred Scriptures (Lectio Divina). Still, contemplation is my conscious abandonment of all knowledge to be open to the ontic possibility of the manifest ability of all, that is, without conditions. That takes some time to achieve, but the formation process uses knowledge to open up (capacitas dei) my heart to sitting next to Christ on the couch and just listening to the whispers from God, through, with, and in Christ, through the energy of the Holy Spirit.

The School of Love is a process for each individual who uses the Scriptures, teachings of the Magisterium, and development of a unique way of life that allows us to challenge each day’s opportunities using the template of The Christ Principle to just relax and let God be God and allow me to be me. It is that simple in theory but complex to achieve because I also live in the kingdom of the earth, where the Ruler of the Earth is none other than Satan. (John 14)

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