On Prayer
I recently spent a week at Holy Cross Monastery, across the Hudson River from Poughkeepsie, New York. It was a silent retreat. No talking, except for praying. Matins; noonday Eucharist; Vespers; Compline, which I prayed alone in the chapel. For six days I was immersed in silence and prayer.
I let go of time and the urgent need to do something. I lived “off the clock.” The monastery has clocks, but they can be ignored. The bells toll the essentials: Time to eat; Time to pray.
I try to come here once a year. It is a time for renewal and for resetting my spiritual rhythm. I always come away with new insights. This time around I encountered what the monastic Fathers called – Passio Libidinis Mundialis – The Passion of Worldly Desire. Thomas Merton, the great Trappist monk and teacher, described it this way in his book, Cassian and the Fathers:
“The greatest danger to the monk’s life of prayer is the possibility of becoming too attached to his work. … In other words, it is a burning and compulsive need for work that keeps him from his prayer; he is running away from himself and from God.”
Now, I am not a monk, but I read those words and thought: Father Thompson, you are so busted!
Merton echoes our Collect for Proper 22: “Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray.”
We get busy. We have things to do, important things. Busyness becomes a compulsion, an addiction, a noble excuse. Merton writes: “… generosity in the contemplative life and the zeal for prayer demands that we mortify the instinctive urge to get into activities which tempt us here and now and appear to be useful and necessary.” Even monks struggle with distractions.
The brothers at Holy Cross are Episcopalians. They follow the tradition of St. Benedict, whose Rule has influenced Western Christianity since the sixth century. Their motto – Ora et Labora; Prayer and Work – is painted on a large stone near the front door of the guesthouse.
Their prayer life is rooted in the psalms. Chanted softly during worship, these ancient songs invite us into life’s joys, sorrows, celebrations and awe: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1) The monks pray all 150 psalms in a two-week cycle without end.
Here, they find Jesus Christ. They see him gladly joining the procession into his father’s house, hear him boldly proclaiming his faith – “In the LORD have I taken refuge; how can you say to me, ‘Fly away like a bird to the hilltop.” (Psalm 11:1) – and they hear him crying out from the cross.
As we know, prayer and worship are embedded in our Book of Common Prayer. The Catechism offers explanations. The Daily Office takes its cue from the monastic tradition. So, in a way, going to Holy Cross is akin to visiting our spiritual home. But a retreat is not an escape.
Esther de Waal, a Benedictine scholar, offers these words from Merton: “We have to remember that we look for solitude in order to grow there in love for God and in love for others.”
Fr. Dion
The Rev. M. Dion Thompson, Senior Associate