The Sisters Of the Visitation of Tyringham

Live + Jesus

ONLY IN STILLNESS CAN HEART SPEAK TO HEART

by Sr Miriam Rose

April 2008

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Dear Friends of the Sacred Heart,
Our culture today almost requires us to move at a continually rapid and steady pace: drive-up windows, quick, short mechanical answers to questions, Internet and e-mail exchanges with their own shortened language, pagers and beepers to facilitate immediate responses. This can create a restlessness in us, even when the treadmill  stops turning, even in our moments of 'down time', when we could seemingly catch our breath. All of this can cause us to continually live on the surface; to avoid moving too slowly or too deeply.

We are surrounded by constant sound and activity. We see so many people who are busily out and about, talking on phones while driving, walking, shopping. Young people carrying their music with them wherever they go. We as a society tend to avoid moments or periods of silence. Yet, it is here in the space and the silence that we find what we are truly seeking: the One who can fill all emptiness, who can bring the one love that truly warms and nourishes us: Our Lord Jesus in the Sacred Heart.

Emptiness is a very common complaint in our time, not the purposeful emptiness of the prayerful heart and mind, but a void, meaningless, unhappy condition. There is a fear of the space and the silence. We rush to fill it at times with trivialities that successfully distract us from looking too deeply. We can also destroy this open space by earnestly filling it with too set a purpose: the long 'To Do' list that becomes so all- important for a sense of accomplishment. Even our well-meaning spiritual practices can actually take away from our purpose of intimacy with the Lord if we are doing all of the speaking and planning.

Can we who have cluttered our lives with so much of the trivial get back to this positive emptiness? Caryll Houselander in her book The Reed of God uses the image of a bird's nest. Over the winter, the nest fills with leaves, twigs, and pebbles. It can be emptied and readied for new occupancy, to be once again a warm and inviting place. She states: "...over and over again there is an emptying process--it is a thing which has to be done in contemplation as often as the earth has to be sifted and the field ploughed for seed."

This emptying and the perseverance it requires take a certain spiritual discipline. Through this practice of discipline, we become attentive to that small, gentle voice of God and willing to respond when we hear it. Because of the inner and outer noise and restlessness, we have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us. A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks to us. We then move slowly from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow his guidance.

A spiritual discipline, therefore, is the concentrated effort to create some inner and outer space in our lives, where obedience to God's gentle voice can be practiced. Through a spiritual discipline we prevent the world from filling our lives to such an extent that there is no place left to listen. A spiritual discipline sets us free to pray; it allows the Spirit of God to pray in us.

To achieve this discipline, spiritual seekers and writers have used many images. St. Teresa of Avila, so busy reforming Carmelite convents, spoke of a little cell within her heart where she imagined Our Lord speaking to her. Thomas Merton retired to a hermitage where every action, slowly and lovingly performed, allowed for the immersion of his soul in God. Another unique example was created by Dag Hammerskjold when he became Secretary General of the United Nations. He created a meditation room. In a leaflet for visitors, he described the room: "We all have within us a centre of stillness, surrounded by silence. This house [the United Nations] dedicated to work and debate in the service of peace, should have one room dedicated to silence in the outward sense, and stillness in the inner sense. It has been the aim to create in this small room a place where doors may be opened to the infinite lands of thought and prayer. People of many faiths will meet here, at one in the utter simplicity of the universal symbols used. . . .There is an ancient saying that the sense of a vessel is not in its shell but in its void. So it is with this room. It is for those who come here to fill the void with what they find in their centre of stillness." Once our own space is created, in whatever manner appropriate to our lives, we must be comfortable enough to actively listen.

Once we have identified our restlessness and chosen to deal with it, we are able to turn to God and receive what he has prepared for us. In the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we know that it is essentially a devotion of love by which God, in Jesus, has loved us and, at the same time, the exercise of our love for God and love for the rest of humankind. To allow Jesus to conquer our hearts means to enter into the flow of his love. It implies that we "discard the old nature, with its deeds and have put on the new nature, which is being constantly renewed in the image of its Creator and brought to know God." (Col. 3: 9-10) More important than all activities we may have in serving our families and the Church is total immersion in the circulation of love that comes from the heart of Jesus and unites us with his loving heart. This should be the positive desire of everyone: priest, religious and lay. This is a life-long task. It unfolds little by little each day as God's will is presented to us in life's situations. We are nourished by remaining close to the source, the flowing out of God's love from the Sacred Heart of his Son-met in that moment of interior silence, in that resting place we have found within.

While in our space, awaiting the breath of God speaking our name, we kneel and adore. Adoration is one of the four chief elements of the devotion to the Sacred Heart-the devotion to God's love. In adoring, we are continually focusing on the immensity of God's loving creation. We see ourselves as only a tiny part of the vast universe that has been loved into existence. All the concerns and busyness of our lives take their proper place, allowing us to be absorbed in the wonder of God's loving Heart and thanking him for his creation.

From this adoration, we are naturally drawn to reparation. Recognizing the infinite love of God, we become aware of all the sins and coldness of heart existing in the world. Bernard Haring, in his book, Heart of Jesus, beautifully explains the true meaning of reparation or atonement: " At the beginning of their conversion many holy people, including Blessed Henry Suso, the great propagator of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, imposed on themselves cruel chastisements, even to the detriment of health; but at a certain point the Lord gave them the insight that he does not want this kind of atonement. Henry Suso was then taught to atone by heartfelt love, unlimited trust, and total conformity to the loving will of God. In a similar way Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, came to the same understanding. While Jansenistic nuns of her time insisted on difficult external penances, this humble nun relayed the message of the Sacred Heart that love alone counts for atonement. From deep sorrow for our own sins and for the grievous lack of love offered to God who is Love, there must arise an insatiable desire to atone by a pure and fervent love for Jesus and-thus unite with Jesus 'unto death'-to offer satisfaction to the Father."

These two movements of our heart-adoration and reparation-prepare us to look beyond our comfort zone to see how we may share this treasure with others; to be able to have compassion in times of distress. These two elements of devotion then lead us to the third, deepening our love, and then to the fourth element, moving outward toward the love and care of others.

Our inner space of silence nurtures us and strengthens us to live the fullness of life God has given us. Our own love of God and humanity grows in these silent hours of prayer, leading us to bring to others the fruits of this contemplation. We need not strive for a specific apostolate or any missionary work. We may find ourselves returning to that restless and rushed state of mind! What has grown in us silently shows through our being: our smile, our handshake, our walk. We model in our new calm and peacefulness the imitation of the love of the Sacred Heart.

Examples abound in the lives of the saints and the saintly people around us. We, here in the monastery, have just seen a film on the life of St. John Bosco. His life was filled with activity, but he had a single focus: to save the orphaned and poor boys living on the streets in Italy. He spent much time in intense prayer and often was faced with difficult obstacles, but he persevered, pursuing both his prayer and activities. He ultimately founded the congregation known as the Salesians, because of his great love of St. Francis de Sales. Pope John Paul II was known for his intercessory prayer. He always had a number of slips of paper with him when he prayed in his private chapel. He prayed constantly for specific intentions asked of him. His moments of privacy and silence were also filled with the love and compassion for the needs of others.

Our place of silence and private prayer is not a place in which we remain, always removed from the hustle and bustle of worldly cares. It is a place of nourishment, a place of peace and intimacy with God in the Sacred Heart. We gather strength and we experience God's love for us, but we also receive his mission: to go out and to be all that God has destined us to be. To take with us this great love and share it with others in whatever way and situation we find ourselves.

We know now that he whom we call God is indeed the Father, the source and end of all being, and that he is with us always in the risen Christ-with us in all our humanity and weakness. Christ has sought us out in every possible depth of our being, to bring us light and love and healing. And he still does. The fact of the resurrection assures us that his spirit will never be vanquished by sin or death in our hearts and in the world. We are, we exist, by the gift of God's love; we are redeemed by the power of that same love. If we open our hearts to it, it will be a force of love and joy within us. 

This presentation was given at the Monastery of the Visitation of Tyringham, MA on Tuesday April 1, 2008

God be Praised