While I am a high extrovert who gathers energy from being with people, I love silence. So the highlight, up till now on my yearly visits to the Trappists has been the rhythms of the Daily Office, especially Vigils at 3:30 in the morning! And when the chants conclude at about 4:10 am, I generally go back to my “cell” and try to follow them in meditation and prayer until Lauds (the 2nd office of the day) at 6 am. I love their emphasis on the ordinary, the obscure and simplicity of work. This year, however, God met me very powerfully in a new way – through my spiritual direction and conferences with Father Dominic, the prior of the monastery. The prior would be like the COO or executive pastor of a large church. Formerly a professor at Georgetown University and a Dominican priest, he joined the Trappists 26 years ago to focus on. Read more.
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Last Monday I arrived at the St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer Massachusetts for my annual weekly retreat with the 70+ monks living there. It was probably my most significant retreat of the last seven years. The following journal entries from my first day (that is until vigils at 3:30 am Tuesday morning) will give you a glimpse into my time: “The goal of this retreat is to keep company with You Lord, to be with You detached from all else, to get rid of all baggage and be cleansed of the world, and, most importantly, to listen. I am holding the following questions Lord”: How do I expand and strengthen the boundaries of my inner hermitage in order to live in deeper communion with You? What new direction and strategies do You have for me? How do I expand and strengthen my inner hermitage that Geri and might live more fully in an exceptional. Read more.
For the last two weeks I have been meditating/memorizing Isaiah 53:2-6 and the spirituality of descent of Jesus. Out of a desire to offer a “sincere gift of Himself,” Jesus chose a downward journey of ordinariness, obscurity, rejection and powerlessness. He chose crucifixion. It preaches well but my resistance to death (and thus resurrection) is deep. Contemplating the cross, however, has made me sensitive, at least recently, about the choices I make each day to follow, or not follow, the crucified Jesus. The following are three simple gifts God gave me this past week: 1. I visited one of our core church family members this past week. Their child has Lennox Gestaut Syndrome –www.lgsfoundation.org, a severe type of epilepsy. For the past four years, they have been in and out of hospitals, working with countless doctors and specialists to control their son’s seizures, and carrying full time jobs in the NYC school system. Their son, once. Read more.
About a month ago, a friend sent Geri and I a wonderful little book, Sleeping with Bread, by Dennis, Matt and Sheila Linn. I had read the book a number of years ago but God has used it to reignite the examen as an integral part of our daily lives once again. It has been wonderful. Yesterday, I ended my sermon on “Disorientation and the Plan of God” out of Isaiah 43 by leading our church through an examen. The handout is below. Check it out. The Prayer of Examen Nov. 1st, 2009. An adaptation by Pete Scazzero from “Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life”, by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn and Matthew Linn Introduction: One of the ways God speaks to us is through our deepest feelings and yearnings, what Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) called “consolation” and “desolation.” Consolations are those experiences that fill us with joy, life, energy and peace. Desolations. Read more.
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