Invitation to Prayer II: Hunger for God

Where do we encounter this hunger for God and find what truly fills us? As a pilgrim people belonging to God, we are called into the desert--where it is dry, desolate, untamed, and uninhabited. God calls us where he can most fully manifest himself to us.

The desert is where we have no resources of our own and are utterly dependent on him. It is where we are overwhelmed by his infinite mercy.

The desert deep within our soul is a difficult place to go, especially in these times and in this culture. It frightens us. We try to avoid it if we can. We can take care of ourselves, we think. But it is only in the desert we realize that we can’t, and that we need God. And when we accept that, an oasis of riches springs forth from that desert to nourish us.

Prayer, ultimately, is about conversion, our transformation in Christ, and that occurs when we become aware of God’s infinite willingness and ability to supply all that we lack. His mercy and love are greater than our sin and failure. But to know infinite goodness, we must first acknowledge what is limited and imperfect.

The desert provides this contrast, and it is where Jesus invites us in prayer. Consider the following Scripture passages and notice the theme that runs through and connects them:

Bread from Heaven

In the desert the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites told them: “Would that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!”

Then the Lord said to Moses: “I will now rain down bread from heaven for you.” Moses said to Aaron: “Tell the whole Israelite community: Present yourselves before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.” When Aaron announced this to the whole Israelite community, they turned toward the desert, and lo, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud!

The Lord spoke to Moses and said, “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them: In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread, so that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God.”

In the evening quail came up and covered the camp. In the morning a dew lay all about the camp, and when the dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert were fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground. On seeing it, the Israelites asked one another, “What is this?” Moses told them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. The Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert. He let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.”

Exodus 16:2-4a, 9-15; Deut. 8:2a, 3

Led into the Desert

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” He said in reply: “It is written: ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’”

Mt. 4: 1-4

'To a Deserted Place'

The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat.

So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on food from all the towns and arrived at the place before them.

When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already very late. Dismiss them so that they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”

He said to them in reply, “Give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Are we to buy two hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?” He asked them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out they said, “Five loaves and two fish.”

So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass. The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties. Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; he also divided the two fish among them all.

They all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments and what was left of the fish. Those who ate of the loaves were five thousand men.

Mk 6: 30-44

*******

What really strikes me about these passages is not only the care God provides for the Israelites in the desert, but the solidarity Jesus shares with all his people—including us. Just like the Israelites, he was led into the desert and tempted to turn away from it. Just like all of us, he gets hungry. After relying on the word of God as his source of strength, he then leads his followers into the desert to experience the same thing.

When he sees the crowd, he experiences gut-wrenching compassion for them as the Good Shepherd, and he begins to feed them, first with Wisdom—the word of God—then with bread.

There is a very clear connection with the journey the pilgrim people of God have made, and are making, through the wilderness to be fed the bread of life.

Michael Casey, in his book Fully Human, Fully Divine, has an interesting reflection on the passage from Mark:

It was literally a gut reaction for Jesus. It was as though Jesus absorbed into himself the chaos of the crowd and allowed it to generate within his own awareness the sharp anxiety and pain which they dimly experienced. Taking their condition on himself, he acted to reduce their confusion by clear and authoritative teaching which was simultaneously comforting and challenging. The important thing to note, however, is that Jesus did not see himself merely as a supplier of unmet bodily needs. His response was, rather, to open a relationship in which all that was his would be accessible to those who approached him. His solidarity with their pain led him to invite them to a solidarity with his connectedness to his heavenly Father.

Another point that comes across, particularly in the passage from Mark, is that of need. The apostles return to Jesus to report “all they had done and taught.” Jesus doesn’t say, “Good job!” Instead, he says, “Come into the desert with me.”

There, faced with the prospect of feeding 5,000 people, the apostles realize they can do nothing, or very little, on their own. There’s really a lesson in humility here—it is God who works wonders, and we can only experience them if we acknowledge that we can’t work them. “Apart from me, you can do nothing,” Jesus tells his disciples. We need God.

The Word of God invites us to need him because as Casey says, he “has become part of human history. He is one with us in our suffering; we are one with him in journeying toward the Father, in the Spirit.”

What does this journey through the desert mean in terms of prayer? It means Jesus has been there. He knows what it’s like for each and every one of us. He knows what we each need, where we each hurt. But he can only provide it if we come to him in prayer and honestly acknowledge it, and let go of our self-reliance and fear.

Thomas Merton spoke of facing our own existential dread before we can know the joy and love of God—“where we stand alone before God in our nothingness, without explanation, without theories, completely dependent upon his providential care, in dire need of the gift of his grace, his mercy, and the light of faith.”

That, to put it quite simply, is conversion. It may sound stark and forbidding, but Merton is in agreement with the saints and the fathers of the church when he says it is not a mournful or discouraging experience.

“On the contrary,” he says, “it can be deeply tranquil and joyful since it brings us in direct contact with the source of all joy and all life. Prayer, then, means yearning for the simple presence of God, for a personal understanding of his word, for knowledge of his will and for capacity to hear and obey him. It is much more than uttering petitions for good things external to our deepest concerns. We wish to lose ourselves, and rest in his love, and rest in him. We wish to hear his word and respond to it with our whole being.”

This is a holy hunger that only God can fully satisfy.

I like the way Benedictine monk Cyprian Smith puts it:

We cannot feel God’s voice thrilling through us unless we first become aware of the tomb-like emptiness within ourselves which provides the echo-chamber for the divine Word. In prayer we lose all and find all. It is the journey, food for the journey, and the journey’s end.

Invitation to Prayer

As Christians, we are all called to encounter and embrace God’s Word to each of us individually deep within our hearts. Personal prayer is simply training ourselves to be more aware of our relationship with God and his presence in the world.

The relationship already exists; personal prayer is what nourishes it.

By this, I do not mean to imply that public or liturgical prayer is not important. Obviously, it is essential—it’s how the Body of Christ expresses itself, transcends time, and joins eternity in the praise of God. It cannot be separated from personal prayer as if they were two distinct or competing aspects of our faith. They are intimately bound with one another, just like breathing requires both inhaling and exhaling. They feed one another. Without one, the other dies.

But the focus here, for now, is on personal prayer—and more specifically, that silent surrender to God’s movement of grace within.

Trappist monk Michael Casey says:

Prayer is an attempt to realize the love that unites us with God, allow it to become more present to us, and give it greater scope to act upon us and change us. We do not produce prayer. We allow prayer to act. We do not create prayer; it creates us.

But we can listen for the invitation, for that “tiny whispering sound” in our hearts that draws us toward God. And to do that, we have to surrender to God, let go of our preoccupations, preconceived notions, our expectations, and simply be still before the God who created us, chose us, redeemed us—the God who knows us better than we know ourselves. In short, we have to let go of ourselves—or better yet, let go of who we perceive ourselves to be—so we are totally immersed in God’s presence.

It seems to me that the more I pray, and the more I study and learn about prayer, the more I discover that I really know less than ever. In the course of my monastic formation the last three years, our common life of prayer and work in the monastery, and my studies, I’ve gained a deeper knowledge of prayer, but I wonder sometimes if my prayer has really deepened. I think it has, but only time will tell. It has certainly changed, and hopefully it is moving me toward God day by day.

Ora et labora, or prayer and work, is the motto adopted by Benedictines. It is intended to be a symbiotic relationship, a rhythm of life in which intervals of communal and personal prayer, work, and our common life together as monks are interwoven into one continuous thread. Sometimes though, this rhythm may be a little out of step. Many of us like to joke that, in reality, our motto is: Ora et labora, et labora, et labora …

It can seem that way at times, perhaps. We are on the go around here from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. I am far busier now than I ever was before coming to the monastery. No one, it seems, has less than three or four jobs. Part of that is our heritage here at Saint Meinrad. We are descended from German monks, and Germans know how to work.

However, a wonderful and mysterious thing occurs here each day, several times a day. No matter what we are doing, or how busy we are, we are called back every few hours to the church for our common prayer. And we have two specific periods each day—one in the morning and one in the evening—set aside for personal prayer and lectio divina or sacred reading. When the bells announce these periods, the faithful monk goes, and leaves everything else behind (physically if not always mentally).

Our ordered round of prayer in the monastery continually calls us, invites us back to listen to God in the spoken Word, and in the depths of our hearts. No matter what else we do, we constantly come back to praise God, who is the center of our lives, and who guides, sustains and completes everything we do.

Through this dedication of our time and our being with God, we are called to become more deeply aware of God’s presence at all times and in everything and everyone, and to broaden our vision on this journey toward God, who is Love.

Fr. Harry, our former novice-master, likes to say that, “Monastic life is not difficult. It’s relentless.” The same can likely be said of any state in life. It takes commitment, concentration, and discipline to faithfully live as a Christian, whether you’re a monk or not. It always has.

Our abbot is fond of saying that “Monks do not do different things than other people do. They just do them differently.”

Indeed. Monks are human beings.

We struggle. We celebrate.
We laugh. We mourn.
We fail. We succeed.
We live peaceably. We get angry.
We work. We rest.
We get tired and frustrated. We are energetic and focused.
We love, and we get lonely.
We sin, and we practice virtue.
We become distracted, and we live joyfully by grace.

And in our work as part of this monastery, we are not so different. We are teachers, administrators, writers, artists, psychologists, tailors, laborers, gardeners, students, health-care providers, retreat directors, spiritual guides, pastors, business managers, computer technicians, musicians, foresters, scholars, locksmiths, delivery persons, craftsmen, housekeepers, cooks, librarians, firefighters, and carpenters.

However, one thing we do quite differently than most people is center our lives in prayer. Through our prayer, work, and common lives together, we seek God—to know and love and serve God above all else, and our neighbors as ourselves. We do this in common and individually. We bring our lives to prayer, and our prayer to our lives. Both are one. It is a unity and integrity of life I never knew existed before coming to the monastery.

It is not only relentless, but relentlessly full of grace.

But it does not necessarily make us experts on prayer, and it does not mean that that unity and integrity can only be lived inside a monastery. Our prayer in the monastery is nothing more than the intentional offering of our time and being for the praise of God. The monastic life is a specific way in which some are called to do that. But all people, whatever their state in life, are called to this intentional offering of time and being for the praise of God. Whoever we are, and whatever we do, all Christians are called to a life of prayer.

God’s pure and simple invitation to prayer is open to all, however we live it out. Each of us is a member of the Body of Christ, and we relate to the whole through each other. But each of us also has a personal and unique invitation from God.

God’s Word is sown in our hearts, and it is there that he calls us. We are born with the desire, or spiritual hunger, to seek God, but we must truly listen for this invitation. As I’ve mentioned, to do that, we have to do something we often resist: Be still, get out of the way, and let God do the talking. We have to be willing to follow Jesus into the desert and let him feed us with the bread from heaven.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you,” Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Matthew (7:7-8). “For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

We all do well to reflect on these words and what they really mean. If we are willing to follow Jesus into the desert, to be fed, to seek, to knock, to ask, what is it we truly desire—deep down in our souls, which words cannot begin to express?

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus asks a very simple question, one he poses to each and every one of us amid our busy lives, our work, our prayer, our failures, our successes, our joys, our sorrows:

“What do you want me to do for you?”

Actually, he asks the same question twice. First, he asks two of his apostles, James and John. They ask for power and glory. Wrong answer. Next he asks a blind beggar by the road, who says, “Master, I want to see.” In other words, “I want to see you, follow you.” His was the correct answer because while he asked from his deepest need, his focus was on Jesus and not himself, nor his preconceived ideas and expectations.

“What do you want me to do for you?” It takes a hungry heart to answer that question truthfully. That scares a lot of people because it means being vulnerable, acknowledging our need. We don’t like to feel that way. We don’t want to be hungry. We want to be full. But too often we fill ourselves with the wrong things and are left dissatisfied. Only the Bread of Life satisfies.

Prayer teaches us how to enter into the question. And it must be pure prayer from the heart, arising from that personal hunger—that need. It must be fiery prayer, beyond words, immersed in the love of God, as John Cassian would say.

The story is told of St. John Vianney noticing an old farmer who would sit for hours in a church. One day, he asked the farmer what he was doing. He replied, “God looks at me, and I look at him.”

This is contemplation, and we are all called to it. In heaven, we will spend an eternity doing it. Here, by God’s grace, we are given a foretaste if we are open to it. It is not complicated, and it cannot be taught. It requires only a heart completely open to God’s grace.

As Christians—especially men—we sometimes tend to over-intellectualize prayer and the spiritual life, to classify it, and systematize it. Monks do it, too. We make it something to be studied and taught, something to produce practical results like a good moral life. That is all good and necessary. Our prayer must be informed, have structure, be communal, and make us better people.

But that is not all the invitation to prayer involves. God did not become man merely to teach or introduce a system of moral conduct, or to inspire our involvement in a myriad of activities and programs. Jesus came to love us, to call us, to draw us, to invite us into his saving action of grace. We are called Christians not because of what we do, but because of who we are. “Come to me,” Jesus says, to discover who you are truly meant to be.

In this invitation, God promises us his presence. “I am with you,” he says repeatedly in Scripture. The gift of presence is the most valuable gift we can either receive or give. It is the gift of self. Prayer is simply being present to God, who is always present to us.

“What do you want me to do for you? Ask and it will be given you.”

Whatever the answer to that question might be for each of us, God has accomplished it in Christ, and he reveals it through our hunger. Our deepest desires are satisfied by our greatest needs.

We're all invited to hunger for the One thing necessary.

Triumph of the Cross

Every moment is grace, an endless opportunity to praise God.

Whether we see, hear, or respond, it is always there, even guiding us when all seems lost.

And when one moment passes, another arrives.

Each one is pregnant with the grace of mercy so that we might recognize peace in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Look, listen, and learn from the Cross.

-- Br. Francis

Love is most likely to spring from another's need of us,
and the fact of spending ourselves for another always
generates new life in us. To give life is the purpose of love,
and we love those people most of all whose needs waken
a response in us that floods us with creative energy,
causing us to put out new green shoots of life.

-- Caryll Houselander

Hope Perched on a Ledge

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into the Abbey Press Thursday morning. I arrived late for work since I had another appointment and because I did not want to be there until after the bad news had been delivered.

Nine people at the Press were laid off. Everyone was told that the Press is getting out of the gift catalog business, that the Press is setting a new direction by exploring some new ventures, and that 25 more people will lose their jobs by the end of the year. By most accounts it was a grim day.

But not one without hope. The move wasn’t entirely unexpected, and in the long-term most realize it is necessary, and hope that the Press will be realigned and rejuvenated.

Still, it is always painful for people to lose their jobs, and for the people around them to experience that loss along with them. One co-worker told me of her “survivor’s guilt.” As a monk, I felt guilt, as well as apprehension, and sympathy. I tried to stay out of the way. Yet, all around me I sensed a mysterious mixture of pain and hope.

It is strange how both can be present at the same time, in the same circumstance, and within the same person. I saw it in their faces. As I walked down the corridor (in full habit), people were already helping one another box up their belongings and carry them out of their offices and into the elevator, and down to the parking lot—to drive into an unknown, uncertain future. But a future nonetheless.

A couple people were on the phone, presumably with relatives or friends. I could only imagine what these co-workers and their families would talk about later at home. Everything was eerily quiet. The atmosphere was solemn, but not morbid. There was reverence for -- and in -- this pain.

And there was this: As I walked down the hallway, each co-worker looked directly at me, smiled warmly and said hello. Sheepishly, and without knowing what else to say and with no desire to say anything else, I simply smiled back and returned the hello.

But these were not obligatory smiles, nor typical hallway hellos. Eyes met and lingered, communicating wisdom deeper than words.

Tinged with sadness, the smiles, eyes and voices were not filled with blame or shame, fear or anger. Rather, they spoke softly and clearly: “I know. I’m sorry. It’ll be OK.” I was amazed. As I passed by each person whom I knew had just lost his or her job, I was met with that same smile, full of hope.

Later in the day, as the monastic community gathered in the calefactory after the evening meal for common recreation, I was surprised again. The day was dim. Storm clouds seemed to hover just above the monastery’s tile roof. Sheets of rain deluged the already saturated ground. Lightning flashed to and fro.

And there it was, perched on the ledge of the center arched window of the calefactory overlooking the rock garden below. A handsome white dove (more likely a pigeon, but it hardly matters), taking shelter under the raised bottom transom window on the ledge, peering through the screen at the gathering monks.

The dove craned its neck to get a better look at us, occasionally pecking at the screen, while we monks bent over, gazed at it, and spoke to the bird like it was a child or pet. Even big burly monks like Br. Zachary and Novice Gary.

The dove seemed to want to come in, to be more fully in our presence; it was not at all frightened by our movement or voices. It actually seemed, rather, to be drawn by them.

“Look, it’s the Holy Spirit,” I said, trying to be funny.

Br. Martin laughed. “If it’s the Holy Spirit, he’d come through that screen.” Then he crumbled a cracker and sprinkled it along the ledge. But the dove seemed more interested in companionship than food.

So there we sat, gazing at the dove, the dove gazing at us, all of us sheltered from the downpour. When the bell rang for compline, everyone seemed disappointed to leave.

Afterwards, 15 minutes later, as I passed through the calefactory, I walked over to the window and scanned the ledge, and then looked out into the murky, sodden night. The dove was gone. The crackers were still there.

This morning, after vigils and lauds, I walked into the calefactory with my cup of coffee. I walked over to the center window, as is my custom most mornings. The sun was still attempting to penetrate the lingering mist outside, but appeared as though it would be successful.

Then I looked down, and there nestled in the corner of the ledge was the dove, its head tucked into its folded wing, fast asleep. Once again, it had returned to our little ark.

Sensing my presence, the dove awoke, preened itself, and then marched along the ledge with its bright red legs. Head cocked to the side, it peered through the screen at me. After a minute or so, it turned around, its claws grasping the rim of the ledge. It paused, and then soared out over the rock garden, its wings spread like an angel gilded with the first rays of dawn.

The morning gloom was breaking. And the spirit of hope was once again rising. For without a future, hope has nowhere to fly.

The Red that I See

I am walking east on the sidewalk on the north side of Iowa City's Jefferson Street, all one-way. It is morning, the day still shaking off its weariness, but the sunlight is pouring through the trees, piercing the shadows on the sidewalk, creating a cobblestone path of light and darkness.

Though I don’t really want to – for I am lazy as the morning – I pick up the pace, begin jogging, impelled to go forward. Soon my heart is heating up, my lungs gulping in the cool air.

On my right, in the street, traffic is stopping and starting, squealing and roaring. On my left, I pass a blue-gray house under renovation, a foreman prodding with good humor his groggy workers. A woman in a yellow dress passes by me in the other direction – against traffic – a cell phone attached to her right temple. Up ahead, other joggers plot perpendicular paths.

One block, and then another. How far should I go? When I’m there, I’ll know.

Lightly, a sweat breaks, the joints loosen, the stride and breath evens, the heart settles into a rhythm. I’m no longer thinking, only wondering: where am I going?

Sounds, images, thoughts rush by my ears with the wind. If it weren’t for my eyes, I wouldn’t notice any of them. Then, up ahead, to the right and left, above and below, I see the red.

Red stoplights. Red brake lights. Why are so many cars red? They race by, ripening along the way like fruit. Maroon, Ruby, Rust, Fire Engine, and Blood.

Bright scarlet canine mailboxes – fire hydrants – stand guard, unmoving, stationed on each block.

A cherry red scooter sits beneath an open apartment window, forgotten by the others. An alarm clock pulses loudly above it. Where is the driver?

Words appear. Signs with fiery capital letters. Always there, usually passed over, but now meant for me to read: EMERGENCY, SOLD, STOP, YIELD, SUPPORT THE TROOPS/STOP THE WAR.

Horizontal slashes of red piled one on another chase me along the side of a grey parking garage. Homes of solid red brick rise all around me, their picture windows watching me, inviting me in. I can see my reflection.

Below the windows are living seas of red -- pinwheels of zinnias, spikes of gladiolas, and waves of petunias.

Drenched, I turn around to head back, and see it all over again from the other side.

Flowers.
Buildings with lines.
Signs.
The lonely scooter again, alarm clock above it still pulsing.
Canine mailboxes.
Cars racing and ripening.

All I see is red.

Stopping where I started, my eyes are lifted. Red clay bricks stacked one alongside the other rise upward, converging. At the point, more than I can see comes into view. I can climb the spire.

In the morning light I see fields of green all around me, and an eternity of blue above. All there from the beginning.

The red I could see is drowned.

The cobblestone path of light and darkness I know, no matter how far I go. Earth and sky, I am there.

Amidst all the red that I see.

-- Writing Mind Exercise,
Iowa Summer Writing Festival, July 21, 2009

This is my body

Why this tumult among nations,
among peoples this useless murmuring?

— Psalm 2:1

Why do you suppose, when we speak of the Church, so often we end up speaking of it merely in human terms?

We all do it. Human nature, we might say. It is our nature to view the Church as we do other “institutions.” It is something to influence, or be influenced by. It is something to exert authority, or something by which authority can be acquired.

How often do we attempt to define the great unknown only by what we are capable of perceiving? Too often, it seems, we view the spiritual through the lens of the political. We see division rather than union.

Right versus wrong.

Us versus them.

Man versus woman.

Rich versus poor.

Black versus white.

Democrat versus Republican.

Conservative versus liberal.

Traditional versus progressive.

Catholic versus Protestant.

The list goes on.

If this is what the Church is—to borrow a phrase from Flannery O’Connor—then to hell with it.

But this is not all it is. We know that what Isaiah the prophet tells us is true: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord” (Is 55:8).

However, like Martha in the Gospel of Luke, we become distracted, perturbed, and adamant. “You are worried and distracted by many things,” Jesus tells us. “There is need of only one thing.”

This one thing necessary captured the undivided attention of Martha’s sister Mary, who sat at the feet of Christ. The Church, after all, is not a mere human institution or political organization. It is none other than a Person—Christ Himself, who invites us to share in His divinity through the Eucharist. With Him, in Him, and through Him, we comprise the Body of Christ. This is the Church.

“He assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make us divine,” St. Thomas Aquinas tells us. “When he took our flesh he dedicated the whole of its substance to our salvation.”

“Take it,” Jesus says to his disciples after blessing, breaking, and giving them bread. “This is my body.”

The Eucharist, then, is our binding force with God and one another. It is our truest identity. Fed with Christ, what is human becomes transformed into His Body, which the Church not only celebrates but bears to the world. It is the Church’s mission to transform the world by transforming you and me into Christ, who both transforms and transcends all human institutions.

“The Real Presence of Christ,” Pope Benedict XVI says, “makes each one of us his ‘house’ and all together we form his Church, the spiritual building of which Saint Peter speaks, ‘Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious, and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house’ ” (1 Pt 2:4-5).

As baptized Christians, corporately and individually, we are made one with the Body of Christ, who mystically works through us all as the Church—human warts and all.

As St. Paul says, “There is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Is not the bread we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, many though we are, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (Gal 3:38, 1Cor 10:16-17).

If, like Mary, we fix our attention on Christ, the one thing necessary that unites all, then the kingdom of God is among us as the Church. Viewed through this lens, we see union rather than division, and the Church defines us rather than vice-versa.

In this way we see Christ as He is—the divine instrument of human salvation in which we all share.

Then, like shoots of the olive, we gather around His table as God’s children.

“Take it. This is my body.”

We will never fully appreciate
the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
until we see the intimate connection
that exists between the mystery
of the Holy Eucharist
and the mystery of the Church,
the Body of Christ.

— Thomas Merton

What Is A Monk?

“What is a monk?" I am often asked. Sometimes, what is meant, or even asked explicitly, is, “What does a monk do?”

It’s not an easy question to answer because being a monk is not a job, but a state of life. Monks are among the busiest, most talented people I know, but that is not what makes them monks.

Perhaps some comparisons would be helpful. Being a husband, a wife, a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, or a friend—these are not “jobs” in the same sense that being an electrician or a lawyer are jobs. Rather, they signify relationships to another—relationships that are deeper than any description or definition. Ask 10 mothers what a mother is, and you will likely get many different answers. They would likely all be right, but none would fully answer the question.

In my mind (ask 10 monks and you’ll likely get many different answers), the question is, in a very mysterious sense, the answer. The fact that it can’t be fully grasped or pinned down is what points us to something beyond ourselves and what we do.

Monks are people devoted to seeking God, and because that definition is elusive and unsatisfactory, it points to God Himself, in whom all real relationships are held.

Primarily, a monk is someone who wants to be real.

He wants to be committed to a lifetime of seeking who God really is, who he himself really is in God, and how God really manifests Himself in all of creation. He strives for this through a daily rhythm of prayer and work with a community of very different individuals committed to the same way of life.

A monk is not some mysterious, other-worldly, and perfectly pious being, although some may think him to be. If he thinks himself to be these things, then he is not being real, and therefore has not yet learned what it truly means to be a monk. A monk seeks God in the ordinary, the routine, and the mundane. That is all that truly sets him apart.

So, a monk, then, is someone who is attentive to all the ways in which God makes Himself present, so that he can be fully present to God.

He seeks God in the butterfly wafting through the meadow, praising its Creator by simply being one tiny butterfly in a vast world that will remain largely unknown to it.

He seeks God in the striking echo of one word of the Psalms recited in choir, a word heard a thousand times before but which suddenly takes on a deeper meaning for a reason he can’t fully explain.

He seeks God in the pre-dawn silence that penetrates his soul like a hand does a glove so that the two become one without anything between them.

He seeks God by suddenly recognizing and appreciating the goodness of a quality in a confrere he hadn’t noticed before, and without discussing it, is inspired to strive for that quality himself.

However, a monk also seeks God by trudging to church morning after morning, sometimes drowsy from a fitful night of sleep plagued by a thousand nagging worries.

He seeks God by praying for the ability to forgive a confrere who deeply wounded him with a sharp remark, knowing that the two must continue working on a long-term project together.

He seeks God by saying yes to a favor asked of him; one he doesn’t wish for but knows is needed.

He seeks God in the bottom of a toilet bowl he’s scrubbed more times than he cares to remember. While he’s doing that, he seeks God by thinking of all the ways the age-worn monk in the bed five feet away has done of all this through the years—remaining faithful to God’s call and encouraging others to remain faithful to theirs through his own prayer and work.

The mystery of being a monk, then, lies deep within the reality of being human while delighting in the divine. The monk strives to see, believe, and be transformed by the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ present all around him at each moment of every day.

Through his prayer, work, and life with the monks of his community, he may marvel or be confounded. Yet through it all, he is committed to integrating all these aspects of his journey to achieve what is necessary for his salvation—a real relationship with God, a real relationship with himself, and a real relationship with everyone and everything around him.

This is a monk.