April
29 FEAST OF SAINT ROBERT
I have been
corresponding with a Carthusian–a monk of
Parkminster–about some work. A letter from him came the other
day, with a couple of pamphlets, including Umbratilem in
Latin and English. The Carthusians seem to have no hesitation in
declaring that infused contemplation is the normal end of
the contemplative vocation. That is a point which, it seems to me,
should be made clear. The contemplative life is not just a complex
system of "exercises" which the monks go through in order to pile
up merits. God has brought us to the monastery to reveal Himself to
us, although it may only be in a very intangible and obscure way.
"He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him
and manifest myself to him. . . . My Father will love him and we
will come to him and make our abode with him."
Perhaps not everyone
in the monastery will arrive at a real recognition of this intimate
presence of God: but I hardly think it possible that God would
allow men to devote themselves entirely to seeking Him without
letting them in some way or other findHim. I think He wants
many of us to find Him and realize Who it is that we have found.
"We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law, and the prophets did
write: Jesus, the son of Joseph, of Nazareth."
Father Nathaniel, a
very young priest who is infirmarian because he has been ill,
preached in Chapter. It was a good sermon, all about the "night of
the senses." In fact, it was the most intelligent sermon I have
heard on that kind of topic since I came here. The monks usually
preach well enough on trials and sufferings and abandonment. All
that is quite well understood. But
trials in connection
with contemplative prayer are not so well
understood.
The little dogwood
tree that was just planted in the garden is now in full bloom. This
evening, after meditation, a hummingbird got caught in the cloister
and was terrified of the monks walking in procession to the
refectory for supper. Two candles are burning by the relic of Saint
Robert's finger bone. In the refectory they are reading the life of
some mystic whose name I cannot catch. Meanwhile I am reading Saint
Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews:"Let us go forth therefore to
Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach, for we have not here a
lasting city, but we seek one which is to come. By Him, Jesus, let
us therefore offer sacrifice of praise always to God. . . ."
"Laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run
by patience to the fight proposed to us: looking to Jesus the
author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before Him endured
the Cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth on the right hand
of the throne of God. . . ."
April30
We had a moral
theology exam and then my chest was X-rayed. The mystic in the
refectory turns out to be the Venerable Maria Celeste Crostarosa. I
had never heard of her. She is eighteenth century. She started the
Redemptorist nuns–contemplatives.
