Tag: stillnes

  • Time for Silence

    Time for Silence

    Following are remarks from Cardinal Dolan of New York republished from Catholic New York (Nov. 29, 2012).  I have added emphases here and there – most notably where Cardinal Dolan speaks about the action that can take place in silence.  Too often we confuse action with activity.  Let’s allow ourselves some silence and stillness this Advent season.

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    “Who We’re Waiting For

    One of the highlights of our bishops’ meetings comes at our morning of recollection.

    It’s rather simple, but we, your bishops, observe that is probably the most effective part of our sessions.

    We gather before the Most Blessed Sacrament, in adoration before the Holy Eucharist, exposed in the monstrance. There we pray together morning prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours, listen to a reflection on God’s Holy Word by one of our brother bishops, and then sit or kneel for most of an hour in silent prayer until the time concludes with Benediction. (During the entire time, 10 or 12 priests are available for the Sacrament of Penance.)

    Two weeks ago, as the hundreds of bishops were in front of Jesus in the Eucharist in silent worship, I quietly got up to go to confession. As I passed one of the helpful hotel attendants, who had been with us all week to make sure that the sound and light were fine, and who I had gotten to know, he whispered to me, “Cardinal Dolan, what are all of you bishops waiting for?”

    “What do you mean, Alex?” I asked.

    “Well, you’re just all sitting there quiet, waiting…none of you are talking or doing anything. Is something wrong?”

    I smiled and tried to explain to him that, actually, we were doing something, praying, but that this was best done quietly, with all the “action” inside of us, in the heart and soul, invisible to all but the Lord.

    “And yes, Alex, we are waiting for Someone: we wait for Jesus to answer our prayers.”

    What Alex observed about us bishops in prayer he could also claim about the next four weeks, because Sunday we begin Advent.

    Advent, of course, is our spiritual “getting ready” for Christmas. We try to squash into four weeks all the hoping, longing, preparing…all the waiting of the People of Israel, our older family members in the household of the faith.

    As we bishops were doing in front of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we now, in Advent, wait for Jesus:

    …We wait for His grace and mercy, sure to come;

    …We wait for Him to answer our prayers, sure He will, but unsure when, where, or how;

    …We wait for reasons to explain suffering, struggle, and worries;

    …We wait for Him to call us to be with Him for all eternity.

    And, lest we forget, the Lord waits for us!

    …Jesus waits for us to open up to His grace and mercy;

    …Jesus waits for us to admit that, as a matter of fact, we do need a Savior!

    …Jesus waits for us to admit that He is the answer to the questions our lives of searching pose.

    …Jesus waits for our ultimate return to Him, for He “has gone to prepare a place for us.”

    My friend Alex couldn’t figure it out. He had watched us bishops rushing around all week, busy with meetings, committees, projects, and talking. And then He sees us quiet, not a sound, not a hand raised to ask a question, no speakers, no reports. Something must be wrong, he worried. So he asks, “What are you waiting for?”

    Really, Alex, it’s who we’re waiting for…and He will come! In the waiting is the very arrival…

    And deep down inside, cradled in the soul, where no one but the One who counts can detect, is again an empty manger where the Son of God wants to be re-born. Christmas can do that.

    “Come, Lord Jesus!”

    A blessed Advent!

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    Happy Advent from A Sensible Life, too!  Let us all make time for silence during this season of preparation.

  • The Lake Isle of Innisfree

    The Lake Isle of Innisfree

    In this “Metre” section of A Sensible Life we will explore the literary arts and will in particular savor the sweet words of those who understand the earth and creation and who speak beautifully of our relationship with the Good, the True and the Beautiful.

    I came across this poem today as my wife and I were reading poetry with one of our daughters. I cannot add much to the beauty expressed in this piece. All I can say is that much of the purpose of A Sensible Life and much of the purpose of my life is contained here:  participation in creation, blessed peace, simplicity (thrift), quiet contentedness…

    The Lake Isle of Innisfree

     

    by William Butler Yeats

     

    I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

    And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

    Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

    And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

     

    And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

    Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

    There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

    And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

     

    I will arise and go now, for always night and day

    I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

    While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

    I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

     

    I will not seek to live alone on the Lake Isle of Innisfree, for that is not my call. But I will seek that peace in my soul and that joy of a life surrounded by beauty; beauty received as pure gratuitous gift, beauty enhanced by those around me, beauty cultured by the work of my own hands…