Tag: Caryll Houselander

• Why Finding God In All Things Leads to Fullness of Joy

  One of the my favorite Christian writers is a woman who lived in fourteenth century England. We don’t even know her name. But we know her by the name of her church, which was St. Julian’s Church in Norwich, England. So she is forever known as Julian of Norwich.

  Julian lived from about 1342 to about 1416. We don’t know a lot about her life, but we do know that when she was thirty years old, she became ill, so sick that the priest was called to administer her Last Rites. But instead of dying, Julian experienced a series of spiritual visions that filled her with a sense of God’s love, mercy, and compassion.

  After that momentous night, she recuperated from her illness, and eventually wrote a book called Revelations of Divine Love. It was the first book written by a woman in the English language. 

  Revelations of Divine Love tells the story of Julian’s remarkable experience of God, but it also is filled with rich reflection and insight into what Julian came to know and believe about her God, who is all-loving and all-kind.

  Remember, Julian lived in the heart of the late middle ages — a time marked by outbreaks of the Bubonic plague, by the burning of heretics at the stake, by bloody peasant uprisings and near constant war between England and France. When you think of it, maybe her time was not all that different from our own!

  But it was a time when the popular image of God was harsh, wrathful, and punitive. Life, as they say, was nasty, brutish and short, and so for many people, God was little more than an autocratic king who ruled with an iron first — not only over England, but over all the universe. This was a god to be feared, not to be loved.

  But thanks to Julian’s visions, she recognized that our God — the God of Jesus Christ — is in fact a God of love, a God of endless mercy and compassion. Very few people had access to the Bible in her day, so the privilege that we take for granted — the ability to go straight to the Bible and look something up for ourselves — was simply not widely available in her day.

  The Bible bluntly tells us that God is love, but the average peasant in the middle ages probably never got the memo. 

  And yet, Julian did! And nowhere does the radical impact of Julian’s visionary insight into Divine Love become clearer than in this bold statement that Julian makes, in the 35th chapter of her book. She says, “For the fullness of joy is to behold God in all.”

  Let me repeat that one for you! The fullness of joy is to behold God in all.

  To Find Joy in God, We Need a Healthy Image of God

  Julian suggests that God is a source of joy — not fear, not terror, not anxiety. I’m reminded of the well-worn phrase from Proverbs, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” What I think we often forget is that the end of wisdom — and by “end” I mean not only “completion,” but also “goal” — the end of wisdom is love.

  Scripture, you see, is very clear: perfect love casts out fear, as the 1st Epistle of St. John boldly proclaims. The fear of the Lord may be where wisdom begins, but the love of God wants to replace fear in our hearts. As Julian points out, to behold God, ultimately, is not a cause for alarm, but an invitation into joy.

  Notice also that Julian invites us to recognize that the fullness of joy is behold God in all. Some modern editions of Julian’s book translate the middle English as “the fullness of joy is to behold God in everything,” but the original middle English very specifically says the fullness of joy is to behold God in all. I like the word “all” because it implies not just all things but also, and perhaps more importantly, all people.

  Julian seems to be suggesting that we need to look for God in each other — which only stands to reason, since it is a principle of the Christian faith that God is present in our hearts, thanks to the Holy Spirit who has been given to us — in our hearts. If the Holy Spirit is in our hearts, than our job is to discover the Holy Spirit, present in each and every person we encounter.

  But, you may be wondering, can we truly find God in all people? What about someone who is violent, or abusive? What about people whose lives have been trapped by the horrors of addiction, and who act out their illness in ways that cause harm to others? How do we find God in those hearts?

  An English writer named Caryll Houselander eloquently answered this question in her book called The Reed of God. In this book, she suggests that Christ is present in all people, but not necessarily alive in all people. Some of us carry Christ in our hearts like God in the Temple, but others carry the crucified Christ in our hearts like his body, lying in the tomb on Holy Saturday.

  We know how the story ends. The Christ who died is the Christ who rose again. But for that one awful day, that Saturday after the crucifixion, his body lay in repose. What is interesting is that every year, Christians from all over the world travel to Israel to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site traditionally believed to be the location of Christ’s tomb.

  Caryll Houselander thought this was ironic. “We should never come to a sinner without the reverence that we would take to the Holy Sepulchre,” she wrote. “Pilgrims have travelled on foot for years to kiss the Holy Sepulchre, which is empty. In sinners we can kneel at the tomb in which the dead Christ lies.”

  So God is in all of us, and some of us we easily discern the Divine presence, and for others the Holy Spirit seems hidden, like Christ in repose in the tomb — but awaiting resurrection. That’s the key. There is no one beyond the grace of God. And the sooner we recognize this in our hearts, the sooner we are invited into the fullness of joy.

  

  A Recurring Theme

  Julian of Norwich is not the only Christian thinker to have counseled us to find God in all. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who was founder of the Society of Jesus, counseled his students to make a practcice of “finding God in all things.” A thousand years earlier, Saint Benedict, who did so much to establish the monastic way of life in the church, instructed his monks that they should receive all guests as if they were receiving Christ himself.

  It’s a bit of spiritual advice that I think all of us would do well to heed, even if we have nothing to do with a monastery.

  But how do we do this? How do we find God in all things? How do we behold God in all? How do we, in the words of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, “seek and serve Christ in all persons?”

  One way to answer this question is to reflect on the wisdom found in Psalm 139. It begins with a humble recognition that God knows us inside out. Saint Paul says that God searches the heart, but here the Psalmist seems to suggest that God’s knowledge of us is even more comprehensive. God knows us, body and soul. God knows all that we do and even all that we think. God is acquainted with all our ways.

  The logic here is breathtaking in its simplicity. To find God, inquire within.

  Now, many well-meaning believers would hasten to insist that we should be careful, we should not trust ourselves, our egos are prone to pride and inflation, and that we are always capable of deceiving ourselves. And I suppose such warnings may have their place. But these caveats take us back to the fear which is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom.

  We need to balance our capacity for fear with our trust in God.

  You, and me, and every human being who has ever walked the earth, are all finite creatures. We can no more comprehend the fullness of God than a drop of water can contain the ocean. But even the tiniest drop of water can know the ocean, and can be contained within it. Likewise, every one of our hearts is a like a drop of water in the oceanic heart of God.

  Once we begin to discover that God is truly present in our lives, the possibility of finding God in all things opens up dramatically. Like the Psalmist assures us, we soon realize that we cannot be apart from the presence of God! 

  Where can I go from your spirit?
  Or where can I flee from your presence?
  If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
  if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
  If I take the wings of the morning
  and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
  even there your hand shall lead me,
  and your right hand shall hold me fast.

  Death cannot separate us from the presence of God. Sin cannot separate us from the presence of God. If we dedicate our lives to running away, we will sooner or later discover that we have simply run straight into the arms that love us, but that will never force us to love in return.

  Putting the “All” in “All Things”

  Somebody — I think it might have been Frank Lloyd Wright — once said, “I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.” He actually wasn’t that far off the mark. Granted, every Christian proclaims that God is infinitely more than the splendors of nature, but one of the reasons why we love the natural world so much is because it’s a place where discerning the presence of God seems easier.

  The ancient Celts even referred to places where God’s presence seemed especially close as “thin places.” More often than not, the thin places where places of tremendous natural beauty.

  It’s easy to find God in a majestic sunset, or a beautiful lake, or an awe-inspiring mountain range. For that matter, God seems to sparkle in the laughter of a newborn baby, the glowing faces of a young couple in love, or the quiet wisdom of a beloved grandmother.

  Our job, as followers of Jesus Christ, is to learn to discern the presence of God in all the places where it may be harder to find: in the midst of suffering, in dangerous neighborhoods, in the politics of someone who doesn’t vote the same way we do. Yes, I have it on good authority that God loves both Democrats and Republicans.

  It takes practice to become a proficient musician, or a professional artist, or a competitive athlete. Likewise, I believe it takes practice to find God in all things and in all people. Our job is to seek God’s presence out. After all, beholding God in all is the fullness of joy.

  I once saw a postcard that asked a very simple question: “If God is everywhere, then where are we?” To find God in all things is to find all things in God. This is not pantheism, for God remains greater than all things and the source of all goodness, all truth, and all beauty.

  May we be open to discovering God’s truth, God’s goodness, God’s beauty — and most of all, God’s love — in our own hearts and in the hearts of all. And in doing so, may we find fullness of joy!

  N.B. The above homily was delivered on Tuesday, June 26, 2018 during Vespers at the Lakeside Chautauqua, Lakeside, OH. The text for this homily is Psalm 139.

  June 28, 2018

  Caryll Houselander, joy, Julian of Norwich, Psalm 139

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• Three Mystics You May Have Missed

  Walk into a Catholic bookstore — or a general bookstore large enough to have a “Christian mysticism” section — and you will see books by or about Thomas Merton, Julian of Norwich, John of the Cross, and Teresa of Avila, along with anonymous works like The Cloud of Unknowing or The Way of a Pilgrim.  These are the “A-List” mystics: figures who are renowned for their sanctity, their wisdom, and their contemplative teaching.

  Anyone who is interested in discovering the wisdom of the mystics ought to read the writings of the “A-Listers.” Other A-Listers include Evelyn Underhill, Meister Eckhart, Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Hildegard of Bingen.

  But there are many Christian contemplatives and visionaries who aren’t nearly as well known as these “rock star” mystics. Not everyone gets to be a celebrity — not every musician is as famous as the Beatles; not every actress is as famous as Meryl Streep. But countless musicians, actors, and other types of artists create work that is world-class, even if they themselves are not  household names.

  The same dynamic is at work among Christian mystics. Some of the greatest mystics are not well-known at all, even among people who are interested in mysticism (okay, let’s be real: mysticism itself is hardly a mainstream phenomenon, so even the greatest mystics — with the possible exception of Francis of Assisi — are relatively unknown figures). Yes, even among “mysticism geeks,” there are many contemplatives whose work is woefully unknown — who deserve to be read, and studied, and talked about, far more than they currently are.

  So for today’s post I’d like to introduce you to three such “underrated” contemplatives. Perhaps you’ve run across their names here and there (especially if you’ve been reading my blog for a while). But I want to formally introduce you to these figures in the hopes that you’ll take a look at their wonderful writings.

  Walter Hilton

  Walter Hilton is to Julian of Norwich and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing what George Harrison of the Beatles was to John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In other words, just as Harrison was an excellent songwriter in his own right but almost totally overshadowed by the two legends who were his bandmates, so too Walter Hilton sadly gets overlooked because of the two mystical geniuses who were his contemporaries in late fourteenth century England.

  And that’s a shame, because in some ways Hilton’s writings, especially his masterpiece The Scale of Perfection, are more accessible and user-friendly than the visionary poetry of Julian or the monastic austerity of The Cloud.

  Hilton was born probably in the 1340s and died in 1396; little is known about his life, although it is likely he studied law at Cambridge before becoming an Augustinian priest. His writings, mostly in Middle English, were popular during his lifetime and the following century. Hilton reveals a keen understanding of the psychology of contemplative life, and (like The Cloud) reveals considerable talent as a spiritual directer in his work.

  The Scale of Perfection concerns the ongoing process of inner transfiguration that marks perseverance in contemplation. Hilton follows the longstanding mystical tradition that understands the human soul as created in the image and likeness of God, and the contemplative life consisting of a gradual reformation of the soul, to restore the image that has been defaced by sin.

  Book to read: The Scale of Perfection

  

  John Ruusbroec

  Evelyn Underhill, the renowned British scholar of Christian mysticism, held John Ruusbroec in the highest esteem. She referred to  him as “great,” “mighty,” “supreme,” “the most transcendental of all mystics.” In The Mystics of the Church, she notes that Ruusbroec “seems often to use [Meister] Eckhart’s ideas as a means of expressing his own experiences, but the ardour and realism with which he invests them are his own.” Who
  was this relatively obscure figure who won Underhill’s admiration?

  Unlike the Meister, Ruusbroec was never formally charged with heresy. In fact, Ruusbroec has been beatified by the Catholic Church — one step short of being declared a saint. So while institutional Christianity accepts him as orthodox, his work is arguably every bit as radical as that of the more notorious Eckhart.

  Born in the village of Ruisbroek (in modern-day Belgium) in 1293, young John began studying for the priesthood with his uncle when only 11 years old. After his ordination in 1318 he served as a parish priest until 1343, when he and two other priests retired to the forest of Groenendal, near Brussels, to become hermit contemplatives. Eventually, though, their small community became an Augustinian friary, with Ruusbroec serving as the community leader until his death in 1381.

  He was a prolific writer, usually composing his works in Flemish rather than Latin, in order to reach a wider audience. Today his best known work is The Spiritual Espousals, a luminous meditation on how Christ, the Bridegroom, unites human nature with his own, in a sacred marriage officiated by the Holy Spirit.

  Book to read: The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works

  Caryll Houselander

  If you are looking for a devotional book to read in Advent, consider The Reed of God, one of the better known works by Caryll Houselander, and English poet, artist, writer and mystic. Not a particularly pious woman (she smoked cigarettes and was known to swear), Houselander suffered from panic attacks and poor health; she succumbed to breast cancer at age 53. Baptized a Catholic at age 6 (she called herself a “Rocking-Horse Catholic” rather than a “Cradle Catholic”), she made the faith her own as a young adult and became a popular spiritual writer in her lifetime.

  She was also a mystic, having had several visions of Christ, including one where she saw Christ like he might be depicted on a Russian Orthodox icon, spread across the sky and watching over the world. Another time, in a vision reminiscent of Thomas Merton’s epiphany on a street corner in Louisville, she was riding the London Underground when she saw Christ within everyone on the train. From this, Houselander developed a truly mystical ability to see Christ in all persons, even in “sinners” — those who, on the surface, may seem to be the most alienated from Christ or from spirituality.

  The author of over a dozen books, her output included poetry (and even her prose writings have a decidedly poetic “voice”). But no work is as enduring as The Reed of God, her meditation on Mary, emphasizing how real, how human, how down to earth the Mother of God was.

  The book shimmers with contemplative insight. She calls Advent (the season of preparation before Christmas, symbolically linked to Mary’s season of pregnancy) “the season of the secret, the secret of the growth of Christ, of Divine Love growing in silence. It is the season of humility, silence, and growth.” (Reed, 28).

  She speaks of the importance of praying in silence, of waiting, and of seeking Christ, “because in the search we become aware of the wonder and mystery that contentment blinds us to.” (Reed, 119).

  Book to read: The Reed of God

  Are there other “underrated” mystics whose teachings have been important to you? If so, please let me know — either through social media or by leaving a comment here.

   

  September 2, 2015

  Caryll Houselander, Christian Mystics, Jan Van Ruysbroeck, John Ruusbroec, John Ruysbroeck, Mysticism, Walter Hilton

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• Preparing for the Silent Night (Conclusion)

  This is part 3 of a 3-part reflection. Click here to read part one and part two.

  Okay, I’m loving The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander so much that I have to give you one more quote for this Advent season.

  Only Our Lady has ever lived all the aspects of phases and moments of Christ completely.
  In some He is newly born.
  In some He is a child.
  In some He is homeless.
  In some He is ignored, unrecognized, mocked, betrayed.
  In some He is hungry; in some He is naked; in some He is helpless…
  He remains, being tempted in all those who are tempted: in those who are in mortal sin, He is in the tomb.
  We should never come to a sinner without the reverence that we would take to the Holy Sepulchre.
  Pilgrims have travelled on foot for years to kiss the Holy Sepulchre, which is empty. In sinners we can kneel at the tomb in which the dead Christ lies. (pp. 114-116)

  

  Here, Houselander builds on the fundamental Christian teaching — so often ignored by Christians of the modern and postmodern eras — the Christ abides in us, each of us, all of us, and we abide in Christ. Out of her Catholic devotion to Mary, she asserts that only the Blessed Mother ever experienced the fullness of abiding in Christ. For the rest of us, our “inner encounter” with Christ will be partial, incomplete, and shaped by the unique circumstances of our individual lives.

  Some of us relate to Christ with the spontanaiety of a child; others with the responsibility of a laborer.

  Others may “crucify” Christ with our self-destructive or unloving behaviors; while for others Christ is “resurrecting” through a commitment to healing and newness of life.

  Perhaps most radical of all: even those who are most utterly lost in addiction, sin, abuse, or hatred, still has Christ abiding in them. But in such cases, Christ lies in repose: “dead” because of how the person has chosen to be alienated from love.

  It is a mistake to assume that God, that Christ, is absent from those who are sinners, whose lives are filled with hatred or willful violence. Christ is not absent from such persons; if he were, they would cease to exist. Rather, Christ lies in repose in such souls, “dead” because of their sin — but waiting, hopefully, for resurrection.

  So when we encounter a person whose life is such a mess of hatred or active addiction or violence, we should not write them off as lost to God. Rather, as Houselander suggests, we should kneel before such a person, reverencing the dormant Christ that resides yet deep within them.

  Wow.

  If we all could take this perspective to heart, how would it revolutionize our world?

  Something to think about, this Advent season — and beyond.

  Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays to all who read this blog. Thank you for your support and your engagement with my words. I’ll be on vacation for the next week or so, so it may be January before I return to this blog (unless I get super-inspired in the meantime, which is always possible). Enjoy this Sacred season, and I look forward to connecting with you in the new year!

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  Disclosure: if you follow the link of the book mentioned in this post and purchase it or other products from Amazon.com, the author of this blog receives a small commission from Amazon. Thank you for doing so — your support keeps this blog going.

  December 20, 2013

  Advent, Announcements, Caryll Houselander, silence

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• Preparing for the Silent Night (Part Two)

  

  This is the second of a series of Advent reflections. To read the first part, follow this link: Preparing for the Silent Night (Part One).

  In part one of this series we considered the following quotation from The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander.

  Because He is in the little house of our being, we will learn to control our minds, to gather our thoughts to silence, and to crown them with peace, just as we learn to control our voices and to move softly when a child is asleep in the house of bricks and mortar. (p. 100)

  Houselander is suggesting that as we prepare for the coming of Christ in our hearts, we need to do five things:

  • control our minds;
  • gather our thoughts to silence;
  • crown them with peace;
  • control our voices; and
  • move softly.

  Let’s look at these one at a time.

  Control our minds. We tend to think of the word “control” as having a meaning similar to “dominate.” But if you look at the history of the word, it originally had a meaning closer to “regulate” or “direct,” and I believe Houselander is using the word in this sense. So moving into silence is a matter of directing our minds. To what end? Well, Saint Paul instructs us to let “the mind of Christ be in us.” So the goal of contemplative prayer is to surrender our minds to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To control our minds, paradoxically, means to relax into the loving direction of the Spirit. And how do we do that? Well, Caryll Houselander shows the way; and the first step is to…

  Gather our thoughts to silence. The beautiful thing about silence is that it is always within us. We just usually don’t notice it, because we are so busy focusing on the content of our thoughts. But as Houselander suggests, we need to gather our thoughts to silence; in other words, to learn to pay attention not so much to the noise inside our minds, but to the silence that lies between and beneath our thoughts. As anyone who has any experience with centering prayer, Christian meditation, or any other form of contemplative practice knows, silent forms of prayer are not about making thoughts go away — rather, learning to trust the silence that can be found between and within the activity of our minds and hearts. To notice and attend to that silence is to gather our thoughts into it. As we learn to rest in the silence within us, this leads us to Houselander’s next step.

  Crown our thoughts with peace. Saint Paul said, “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7). In other words, as we let go of our need to understand the ways of God (which will always be limited by the finite nature of the human mind), we can more easily relax in to the peace of God which guards our hearts and minds — in silence. We typically speak about “peace and quiet,” acknowledging that there is a link between serenity and silence. The “silent night” is the night that belongs to the prince of Peace. Trust the silence within you, and God will lead you to peace. Even when our thoughts are agitated, confused, angry, or even violent, we can meet them with the peace of God which we find in the silence that is always resting deep within us. Thus, we crown our thoughts — all our thoughts, not just the “nice” or “spiritual” ones — with the profound, healing serenity of Christ.

  Finally, Houselander suggests that this process of relaxing in to our inner silence, as a way of acknowledging that we are the bodily “house” of Christ, is similar to how a parent cares for a sleeping child. She notes two ways that parents do this:

  Control our voices. Once again, remember we are called not to dominate our tongue, but to direct it to Godly purposes. Saint James says “no human being can tame the tongue,” but Saint Luke reminds us “What is impossible for human beings is possible for God”  (James 3:8, Luke 18:27). By the grace of God, we can direct our voice, our tongue, to honor God through silence. We can learn to let go of the need to always be talking, always be making noise with our mouths. When we acknowledge that Christ dwells in our hearts, we can learn to let go of the compulsion to speak, and learn to listen instead. And even when we do speak, we are invited to do so gently, peacefully, quietly. Speak softly, and carry a big Spirit — the Spirit of God within you.

  Move softly. Finally, Caryll Houselander speaks about “moving softly.” She’s talking about a parent caring for a sleeping child — we move softly to avoid disturbing our baby’s slumber — but I think this is symbolic of maturing in the spiritual life. As we embrace silence and discover God’s peace in our hearts, we realize that we can move gently through life. We can embrace compassion and tenderness, tenderness and self-control, as the defining characteristics of our lives. To be silent in God is to be capable of walking gently with wisdom. It leads to a holier way of being, of doing, of living.

  Let me wrap up this reflection with one of my favorite verses in the Bible: Psalm 62:1, which to my mind captures the full spirit of Advent. In the New American Bible that verse reads “My soul rests in God alone, from whom comes my salvation.” But consider how it is translated in the Jewish Artscroll Translation: “For God alone my soul waits silently, from Him comes my salvation.” For God alone, my soul waits silently. The heart of this verse is a word in Hebrew, dumiyyah, which captures the essence of contemplation as well as of Advent. Dumiyyah can literally be translated as “silence” or “rest,” but it also has a sense of “waiting” about it. To rest in God means to wait in silence upon Him. It bears repeating: To rest in God, means to wait in silence upon Him. May each of us discover in these days of Advent our own path toward resting in silence as we wait for his coming, and for his coming again. Amen.

  Click here to read the Conclusion to this series of Advent Reflections.

  Disclosure: if you follow the link of the book mentioned in this post and purchase it or other products from Amazon.com, the author of this blog receives a small commission from Amazon. Thank you for doing so — your support keeps this blog going.

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  December 18, 2013

  Advent, Caryll Houselander, silence

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• Preparing for the Silent Night (Part One)

  

  My Advent reading for this year is The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander. A twentieth century Catholic mystic, Houselander lived from 1901 until dying from breast cancer in 1954. She wrote several books, but The Reed of God is her most enduring work; published in 1944, it explores themes of waiting, pregnancy, seeking and beauty in regard to Mary’s relationship to Christ. Insightful and earthy, it transcends the theological horizons of its time and has come to be regarded as a twentieth century spiritual classic. Poignant in her frank description of life (and faith) during war time, her theme of suffering the apparent absence of Christ (expanding from the story of Mary and Joseph searching for the 12-year-old Jesus when he was in the temple) continues to resonate 70 years later.

  So as we progress into the third week of this short, lovely season, I thought reflecting on a few words from Caryll Houselander makes all sort of sense.

  To begin…

  Advent is the season of the secret, the secret of the growth of Christ, of Divine Love growing in silence. It is the season of humility, silence, and growth. (p. 28)

  What does Houselander mean by “the secret”? I think she is referring to the mystery. We are moving into the dark time of the year, the days are getting shorter, the harvest is done, this is a time of letting go, of hibernation, of the old year passing away. But there’s a secret. In the midst of the cold, and the darkness, and the uncertainty, in the silence of Mary’s womb, a new life stirs — and not just any “new life,” but the life, the life of Christ. When things look their bleakest, God is secretly at work.

  But because it is a secret, God keeps his mouth shut. The quality of God’s secret is that it comes to us in silence, silence and humility. The word humility means simple, down to earth, of the earth. And Jesus, who emptied himself of his transcendent being with God to take on the form of a baby, born in poverty, in a barn in a  backwater town in a backwater province of the empire – that’s humility. And out of that secret, that silence, he literally changed the world, changed all things, forever.

  So when we interrupt the noise and the craziness and the chaos of the secular “holiday season” to reconnect with silence, we are creating the space for each and every one of us to imitate Mary, and – entirely by the grace of the Holy Spirit – to open up a place in us, not in our wombs, but in our hearts, where Christ can be once again, born into a world that is so desperately hungry for Him. When we let our hearts be the new manger, the new crèche, where Christ can once again come into our lives, we become what Caryll Houselander called a “house” for Christ.

  Let’s consider what she has to say:

  Because He is in the little house of our being, we will learn to control our minds, to gather our thoughts to silence, and to crown them with peace, just as we learn to control our voices and to move softly when a child is asleep in the house of bricks and mortar. (p. 100)

  Think about it. Houselander is writing these words decades before the modern explosion of interest in contemplative prayer, centering prayer, and so forth. This is a clear reminder that the western contemplative tradition has always affirmed silence as the heart of the mature spiritual life. This is why monasteries are havens of silence, and why churches up until recently were the same.

  Houselander gives us a wonderful image: stay quiet inside our “house” — the house of our souls — like parents who lovingly keep quiet while their babies are sleeping. The “baby,” of course, is the presence of Christ, the Son of God, in our hearts. We remain quiet not out of fear of waking the sleeping baby, but rather as a way of lovingly tending to the humble presence of the Holy One within us, given to us in Baptism, fortified by the Eucharist and Reconciliation and all that we do to participate in God’s grace in our lives.

  So the key to preparing for the silent night is, paradoxically, to find the night of silence inside of us. As important as it is to cultivate exterior silence by setting aside time when all the gadgets and gizmos are turned off, ultimately it is finding the interior silence that is the key to the contemplative life.

  This does not need to be anything fancy, you do not have to become a monk or take a centering prayer class. Although those are wonderful things to do. But it can be as simple as spending a Holy Hour in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, or dedicating the serenity of your morning walk to the unseen, unfelt, but truly real, presence of God.

  To be continued… Click here to read part two.

  Disclosure: if you follow the link of the book mentioned in this post and purchase it or other products from Amazon.com, the author of this blog receives a small commission from Amazon. Thank you for doing so — your support keeps this blog going.

  December 16, 2013

  Advent, Caryll Houselander, silence

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