Wednesday Wonder
I am not exactly sure how one changes the internal clock so as to fit in monastic time. Theirs is a way punctuated by prayer, work and communal meals. For the first few days of a week-long retreat I feel like I have jet lag. A short flight and you are somewhere else and your schedule is upside down. There is also some adjusting on the other end, the return leg, as we re-enter whatever it is we call normal life. I remain thankful that there are places and communities on the globe that are so free of our obsessive sense of time that they give themselves wholly to a different understanding of time, an eternal dimension of time, and have created a life that reflects that.
Not all monasteries are the same, each tradition moving differently and with different purpose. The “apostolic” traditions move into the world bearing the fruit of service in education, health care and parish life. The “contemplative” traditions have as their particular vocation prayer for the world. It is a precious thing that someone would define their purpose in life in this way, both precious and rare. Even if we who are in the active life are not called to a monastic spirituality we can, nevertheless, learn much about the rewards of deep spiritual practice, life in community and what happens when Christ becomes the radical center.
One morning at Lauds (6:30 a.m.) it was time to celebrate mass, to share in the Eucharist, the Holy Communion. As a preparation for this moment, the host is removed from the sacristy and displayed in a monstrance (a clear glass set in a frame). And then, for the longest time, the Body of Christ adores the Body of Christ.
My Catholic grandmother would be disappointed to learn just how Protestant her grandson had become, how though I have no doubt about the presence of Christ in such rituals (because Christ is revealing everywhere always), I do experience a disconnect when it comes to icons, relics and certain rituals. I often take on the role of observer because I do not feel fully connected to the ritual and what it represents. Though I am often rapt with attention in communion when the bread is broken, the ancient words pronounced, and the drama represented, the adoration of the host is not something that comes naturally for me.
Somewhere during this time of silent adoration, I catch some movement out of the left side of my field of vision. It is one of the exceedingly aged monks, one who has spent the last forty or fifty years, every day, adoring Christ is just this way. The movement I see is his robed arm, extending out and toward the host displayed on the altar. I think he believes, in that flash instant, that he can reach out and touch Christ like you and I might shake hands, or feel the warmth of a fire, or hold the full moon in the curvature of our own cupped hands. He lifts up his eyes and reaches like a baby for its mother, this old man does.
And he keeps his hand up, in place, reaching, for the longest time, like Moses holding the staff so that the world can squeeze through the sea to safety, until he himself takes off his sandals and walks across the damp riverbed on bare feet.
