Quote

solitary

/ Br Marco / Leave a comment

The hole was a trip. They threw me in a six-foot-by-nine-foot room with just a mattress on the floor and a toilet. During the day they would remove the mattress and make me sleep on the concrete floor because they didn’t want me to be comfortable. It was pretty inhumane to be in a room twenty-three hours a day with the light always on, but you get used to it. You become your own best company. In a weird way, you get your freedom in the hole.

Mike Tyson

In antiquity as well as in the Middle Ages there was an awareness of this longing for solitude and a respect for what it means; whereas in the constant sociality of our day we shrink from solitude to the point (what a capital epigram!) that no use for it is known other than as a punishment for criminals. But since it is a crime in our day to have spirit, it is indeed quite in order to classify such people, lovers of solitude, with criminals.

Kierkegaard

witness

/ Br Marco / Leave a comment

The true knight of faith is a witness, never a teacher, and therein lies the deep humanity that is worth more than this frivolous concern for the welfare of other people that is extolled under the name of sympathy but is really nothing more than vanity.

Fear and Trembling

A believer was bestowed the title of red martyr due to either torture or violent death by religious persecution. The term “white martyrdom” was used by the Church Father Jerome, “for those such as desert hermits who aspired to the condition of martyrdom through strict asceticism”. Blue (or green) martyrdom “involves the denial of desires, as through fasting and penitent labors without necessarily implying a journey or complete withdrawal from life”.

Christian martyr

silence

/ Br Marco / Leave a comment

As my prayer become more attentive and inward
I had less and less to say.
I finally became completely silent.
I started to listen
– which is even further removed from speaking.
I first thought that praying entailed speaking.
I then learnt that praying is hearing,
not merely being silent.
This is how it is.
To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking,
Prayer involves becoming silent,
And being silent,
And waiting until God is heard.

Kierkegaard

for you!

/ Br Marco / Leave a comment

So go on, I beg you, with all speed. Look forward, not backward. See what you still lack, not what you have already; for that is the quickest way of getting and keeping humility. Your whole life now must be one of longing, if you are to achieve perfection. And this longing must be in the depths of your will, put there by God, with your con­sent. But a word of warning: he is a jealous lover, and will brook no rival; he will not work in your will if he has not sole charge; he does not ask for help, he asks for you.

Cloud of Unknowning

Day 33 – seriously?

/ Br Marco / Leave a comment

Normal day! I think I am really going to struggle next week when it is back to the “world”.

I have been moved by two Thomas Merton quotes:

À contemplative is not one who takes his prayer seriously, but one who takes God seriously, who is famished for truth, who seeks to live in generous simplicity, in the spirit.

Yes! It is not about solitude, silence, prayer, or meditation. It is about Jesus! Taking him seriously is the point. And all is gift!

I should add, not only for those who live a monastic/religious/vowed life – for all!

Hence monastic prayer, especially meditation and contemplative prayer, is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him whom we have found, who loves us, who is near to us, who comes to us to draw us to himself.

Rest versus action – that is the tension of the anchorite life. Simply resting in God, being present for him, and riding the wave.

being me?

/ Br Marco / Leave a comment

Today, in Australia, is a public holiday for the Queen’s Birthday. So in honour of Her Royal Majesty, I have been watching the UK version of Humans. It is based on Swedish series called Real Humans.

In short, AI (called “synths” in the show) becoming conscious – feeling, thinking, and living in freedom. They embody various human traits – caring, agression, “philosopher”, etc. I like the way the UK does TV!

While the consciousness theme is fascinating, I have been struck by a question repeated throughout the series: “what is it like to be you?”. Of course, there is no answer because there is no point of reference. The question illustrates Existential Loneliness – only I know what it is like to be me. And the quote on my email signature comes to mind:

The formula that describes the state of the self when despair is completely rooted out is this: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it.

SUD

I feel like a large part of modern life is all about avoiding the question or escaping into “false answers”. (Doesn’t Merton write about that in No Man is An Island?) So the most important question in my life, who am I?, has to be faced alone before God. I can try to give an answer to others. But there is absolutely no need to justifiy myself to others – my beliefs or my actions. There is only One to whom I must answer – “the power that established me”. In the end I have to answer to my Creator by being “me”. I have to hold in tension the various aspects of my life – freedom and necessaity are at the top of my life at the moment.

So may the Heart of Jesus have mercy on you today!

in freedom

/ Br Marco / Leave a comment

… the self has the task of becoming itself in freedom.

Sickness unto death

So I am having this love affair with Sickness unto Death today. (Or should that be I am having a love affair with Kierkegaard?) So the above really spoke to me.

Kierkegaard, The Point of View

/ Br Marco / Leave a comment

Every more earnest person who knows what upbuilding is, everyone, whatever else he or she is, high or low, wise or simple, male or female, anyone who has ever felt built up and felt God as very present, will certainly agree with me unconditionally that it is impossible to build up or to be built up en masse, even more impossible than to “fall in love en quatre [in fours]” or en mass

freedom?

/ Br Marco / Leave a comment

A major theme in anchorite spirituality is freedom. Unlike more traditional monasticism, where the major theme is obedience, anchorites have the freedom to build their own spirituality alone. I think, in a way, this is how in a modern context, the ancient tradition can be lived. Built around prayer, meditation, and reading, the anchorite builds their life in freedom completely focused on Jesus.

So I found this quote from Merton that says it much better:

This means I must use my freedom in order to love, with full responsibility and authenticity, not merely receiving a form imposed on me by external forces, or forming my own life according to an approved social pattern, but directing my love to the personal reality of my brother, and embracing God’s will in its naked, often unpenetrable mystery. I cannot discover my “meaning” if I try to evade the dread which comes from first experiencing my meaninglessness!

Contemplative Prayer