The Ultimate Act of Faith

Contemplative monks and nuns in today’s world are often looked at in a negative light.  Those of us who live active lives look at the suffering all around us, recall God’s words about giving Him food, shelter, et al., and something inside us rebels against those who, in our view, lock themselves away from the cares of the world.   How dare they live semi-comfortably with a solid roof over their heads and often breathtaking surroundings, while children are being conscripted into armies in Somalia?  How selfish!  Aren’t we all instructed constantly by our teachers, our society, our priests on how we are supposed to give back?  Why are they exempt from that basic pillar of our society?  Give back to the world that has given you so much!

But take a second a reread that last sentence in a Christian light: “give back to the world that has given you so much.”

The world has given us so much?  What has the world given us? “All that is in the world…is not from the Father” (1 John 2:16). “Do not be conformed to the world” (Romans 2:12).  And finally, as Christ Himself said, “If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to this world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you” (John 15:19).

We owe the world nothing.  We owe God everything.  Christ did not merely say “be nice,” but “whatever you did for these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). The only reason we owe the world anything is because, and only because, Christ commanded us as such.  It is God who has given us everything.  To claim the world has given us anything disregards the Creator from whom all blessings flow.  God gave us life, light, truth, and every gift that we have.  We owe God everything—not the world.

Of course, for must of us, the Creator calls us to take care of the world of His creation.  It works out quite well for us.  We work at some business, or in government, or perhaps even at a nonprofit (and then we really feel holy).  We tell ourselves this organization is serving God’s creation in some way, and then we happily collect our paychecks every other Friday, donate a few bucks on Sunday to starving kids…somewhere—I can’t remember quite where right now…to calm that annoying voice God put in our hearts we call “conscience,” and then take the rest of the money to go on a well-deserved cruise in the Bahamas. 

For most of us, that’s all God asks, so long as we get rid of any prideful notion that we have somehow “earned” that money through our own merit or that we have any more right to it than our neighbor or the starving children.  Remember, each and every gift we use, down to our perseverance and work ethic, is a gift God chose to give us.  God asks us to direct some of it for the good of His creation, and then, in yet another gift of love, allows us to enjoy our cruises even while His other children starve.

Again, no problem, so long as if God asked, we’d cancel the cruise tomorrow and go work in soup kitchens on the south side of Chicago.  So long as if God asked, we'd cancel the cruise tomorrow and pray for him for 9 days straight.  After all, Paul instructs us to “pray without ceasing” (Thessalonians 5:17), and even three thousand years ago, the Psalmist instructed us to pray 7 times a day (Psalm 119:164).  The contemplative agrees that he cannot turn his back on the world (Thomas Merton has written beautifully about this in his book Contemplative Prayer).  But He is called by God to listen to Paul, and takes literally the Psalmist’s instruction.  He cancelled his life plans to get closer with God. 

Sure, God has called few to this vocation, but it is a vocation that I have come to immensely respect. I spent this past week with the monks at Gethsemani Abbey in Trappist, KT.  I tried to pray with them 7 times daily plus Mass (starting with a vigil at 3:15 A.M.).  I walked around the grounds as a retreatant while they were hard at work, and I could feel the effect on the surrounding area of their 164 years of constant prayer in that location.

Most of all, though, I came to realize that their lives were the ultimate acts of faith.  The rest of our lives are full of acts of faith, sure.—we do say the Creed every Sunday.  However, we all have insurance policies.  We have kids we’ve raised, causes we’ve fought for, people we’ve helped.  And, just in case this God thing doesn’t work out, we can still look back on our lives and know we have a legacy.  We’ve been “productive—” we’ll be remembered. Even the Pope has overseen the largest international charity in the world, and the lowliest priest helps people who are suffering every day.

Contemplatives, however have no such insurance. They have no families.  They haven’t given money to causes.  Sure they show “hospitality” to visitors, but generally that’s the Cross of the Guestmaster, and no one else need really know they’re even there.

If you view contemplatives with the eyes of the world, their lives are of 0 value (literally: with their vows of poverty, their net worth is 0).  Even martyrs, who give “everything” for God, have more: every Martyr is automatically a saint, and is remembered throughout the ages with their own feast day. Not many people mourn the passing of a contemplative.  Name 3 Benedictine monks who you’d pray for if the got sick or died.  How about 3 Cistercians?  Do you know any Carthusian nuns? Bethlehem nuns?  No?   Good—that’s the point.  Merton talks about how the purpose of a monastery or convent is to make contemplatives understand in a visceral sense that we are strangers in a strange land called earth.   It’s a rare stranger who gets a eulogy.

A contemplative takes Paul and the Psalmist’s words very seriously.  Their whole life’s purpose is devoted to getting closer to God.  They have no back up plan, and no one outside their individual cloister will remember them when they die.

We cannot help but look at them, and think that they are fools. 

And they are fools—fools for Christ. 

Especially if there is no Christ.

This week, I saw many men living out this ultimate act of faith every day.  I knew hardly any of their names, but I saw every day a faith lived out without excuses, without insurance policies, without advertizing.  And I ask myself, and you, what do we do for God’s sake and His alone?  What do we do that, without Him, would be meaningless.

Whatever it is, that’s what we should be doing more.

Sisters

This past week, I took a camping trip with my sister up to Niagara Falls (graduation gift).   My sister and I have always been really close, but we get busy, and taking trips like this allow us the moment to take a step back and reconnect.

My sister’s one of the people who has influenced me most in my life: I started piano lessons because she started piano lessons.  I started gymnastics because she started gymnastics.  The list goes on.  Despite the fact we see talk to each other way less than we should, and see each other even less, This week, we kept surprising ourselves with similarities—the same reactions (literally saying the same thing at the same time), ordering the same food at a restaurant never having discussed it. 

But that doesn’t mean we don’t have plenty of differences.  She’s always been the adventurous one, the social one, the athletic one.  I tended to stick to my books and my piano.  She’s a high school English teacher, while I’m studying to go into law.

The Bible doesn’t really abound with many stories of older sisters.  But one exception is a story I particularly love.  It’s about Miriam, Moses’ older sister.   When Moses’ mother saved his life by literally setting him adrift down the Nile, Miriam kept watch over him.  After the Israelites had left Egypt, Miriam (by now referred to as a prophet) grabbed a tambourine and led the singing and dancing, composing a victory song to the Lord on the spot. 

I see a lot of my sister in Miriam: protective, charismatic, fun-loving, and creative.  Most of all, though, she is an inspiration to me.  The stories she can tell about the impact she has had in the lives of her students even in just two years of teaching can make me rethink my plans to Save the World through my Law Degree.  She reaches out and connects with all sorts of people on an individual level in a way I never will be able to.  Above all, though, she challenges me on a personal level.  Sometimes, that means getting me to more completely experience a waterfall in Hawaii by climbing it when I would have been perfectly content taking a few pictures.  Other times, it’s getting me to go to a club I might otherwise be a bit leery about going to, or introducing me to sets of people I would have never struck up a conversation with on my own.  It’s through the new experiences like these that I am challenged and can really grow as a person.

It’s so easy to get comfortable, surround yourself with people who think the same as you, and coast through plans that you came up with several years ago.  It’s easy to condemn people who act differently than you as cowards, fools, immoral, etc., all so you don’t have to deal with your own views and beliefs being challenged.  But my sister never lets me do that, and instead has taught me to look for the Christ in them, and the wisdom that they may have—however different it is from my assumptions. 

Aristotle always thought that the highest form of friendship was the one in which friends inspire each other to be better people.  I think the same thing might apply to family, and I’m thankful for the blessing that my sister is for me every day.

An Open Letter to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious

Dear Srs. Deacon, Farrell, and Zinn:

I am writing to express my solidarity with the LCWR during this time while it is in dialogue with the Church in this aftermath of the doctrinal Assessment.  I was praying for you during your meeting these last few days, and was pleased to read of your intent to engage the Church in dialogue over its objections to some of the theological views of your Sisters the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith found in its doctrinal assessment released this past April.

I was very active these past four years in my campus ministry as a student at Duke University, and I plan on continuing when I begin law school at the end of the month.  Unsurprisingly on a University campus, I encountered many Catholics who had many questions and struggles with the Catholic faith, which the current official explanations were insufficient to allay.  I myself struggle with numerous Church doctrines, and have taken all means I have seen possible to inform my conscience.  (Indeed, after I complete my J.D., I am seriously considering applying for a theology degree.).  Yet, the ecclesiastical hierarchy seems increasingly hard of hearing with respect to any sensus fidelium (Lumen Gentium 12), and the ability of our primary “teachers of the faith…and pastors”—our  Bishops—and their ability to “seek out men and both request and promote dialogue with them“ nearly impossible with so many other demands on their time (Christus Dominus 2, 11).

You and your Sisters are an inspiration for us Catholics in whom God has planted an invitation to engage with our faith at a deeper level.  As Sister Pellegrino of the Sisters of St. Joseph said at your conference, your use of dialogue can “model something different for our culture, for our politic, and for the Mystical Body of Christ.”  We are indeed one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.  However, our call to oneness must always be understood in the context of our catholic universality, and the authority of apostolic succession must be understood that holiness is granted to the whole Church—all “the holy people of God”—not merely those who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders.

Mary, who was no priest, had perhaps the most direct revelation of God’s Word of any man or woman who has ever lived.  Yet she needed no permission by either the religious authorities of her time or by Joseph for her to say yes to God’s call, or for her obedience to God’s authority in heaven to result in a worldwide renewal of faith.   I pray for Mary’s intercession on your case—that the Star of Wisdom and Comfort of the Afflicted may stand by you and strengthen you for what must be a trying time.

Thank you for all you do, and please know that I am continually praying for the success of your effort.

In Christ,

Shane 

The Correct Resolution

This past Wednesday, I was able to see the Venezuelan-American pianist Gabriela Montero perform at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s (CSO) summer home at Ravinia, just north of Chicago.  After her performance of the Grieg Piano Concerto—an old favorite of mine—she took a tune unfamiliar to both me and her that a random audience member sung for her and improvised on it.  (For the musically-inclined: she added counterpoint to a random melody on the spot.)  

Improvisation, or making up music as you go along, is normally strictly the realm of jazz pianists, but Montero has made a name for herself by creating improvisations based on well-known (or less well known) tunes suggested to her by the audience.  She does it with all sorts of music:  a Classical/Baroque Happy Birthday, Rachmaninoff’s 3^rd piano concerto à la Bach or à la jazz, a Romanticized national anthem of Scotland, and a latinized Harry Potter.

Certainly, if you transcribed Montero’s improv, it probably wouldn’t satisfy music theory professors who critique composers who spent years on their compositions.  But my jazz piano teacher in High School always said there is no wrong note in improvisation. Whatever note you play is the right one, no matter how weird it sounds to the ear. The trick, though, is how you “resolve” the note you just played.  If your note was dissonant, building tension or perhaps downright discomfort in the listener, do you relieve that tension with a harmonic note, or purposely build it up further for a later release?  The true art of improvising is making that choice deliberately and correction.  So “There is no wrong note in improv—just incorrect resolutions.”

This makes me think of how God works in our lives.  In his allegory, “The Music of the Ainur” from The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien describes the act of God’s creation as that of a composer directing His musicians (angels) in improvised variations on His theme.  Tolkien writes of God as the master improviser and composer, while the Devil attempts to insert His own themes and creations over and above God’s.  Eventually, there are two clearly different musics being played at once. God’s “was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came,” while the Devil’s was “loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison of many trumpets braying upon a few notes.”  While the Devil’s music might try to drown out God’s by sheer force of violence, somehow “its most triumphant notes were taken by [God’s] and woven into [God’s music’s] own solemn pattern.”

I’m always skeptical of the “it’s all in God’s plan” reassurances when things are going rough.  It’s hard to look at the Aurora shootings and say “Yup, God’s plan at work.  Isn’t it beautiful?” It seems loud.  And vain.  And endlessly repeated.

So instead of being endlessly distracted by the discord, I started looking for God’s resolutions, for no matter what notes the Devil may insert, the Master Improviser could certainly resolve them in a way to make even the most ugly act a part of a beautiful composition.  Then, I read this article a friend had sent me a few days after the shootings, and I realized that here was just one small example of God doing just that, and I saw in a moment of resolution a piece of God’s grace.

God gave us free will, and as a result, a lot of things against His law happen.  And it is so easy to allow the Devil’s dissonance to crowd out God’s melody of grace and hope.  Those of us forced to live with the discord can only strive to make sure that we don’t cause it and have the faith to look for those moments of resolution, for in those moments, we find not only grace, but hope.  And not only does hope save us, but with faith, perhaps God will begin to call on us to be a vehicle of hope to another person.  And that is the greatest gift of all.