2 Kings 5:1-15
Luke 4:24-30
Thomas Merton has written:
“In practice, the way to contemplation is an obscurity so obscure that it is not longer even dramatic. There is nothing left in it that can be grasped and cherished as heroic or even unusual.
“And so, for a contemplative, there is supreme value in the ordinary routine of work and poverty and hardship and monotony that characterize the lives of all the poor and uninteresting and forgotten people in the world.
“Christ, who came on earth to form contemplatives and teach the ways of sanctity and prayer, could easily have surrounded himself with ascetics who starved themselves to death and terrified the people with strange trances.
“But his apostles were workers, fishers, publicans who made themselves conspicuous only by their disregard for most of the intricate network of devotions and ceremonial practices and moral gymnastics of the professionally holy.
“The surest asceticism is the bitter insecurity and labor and nonentity of the really poor. To be utterly dependent on other people. To be ignored and despised and forgotten. To know nothing of decency or comfort. To live in much dirt, and eat bad food.
"To take orders and work hard for little or no money: It is a hard school, and one which most pious people do their best to avoid.
“Many religious people, who say they love God, detest and fear the very thought of a poverty that is real enough to mean insecurity, hunger, dirt.
“And yet you will find those who go down and live among the poor not because they love God (in whom they do not believe) or even because they love the poor, but simply because they hate the rich and want to stir up the poor to hate the rich too.
“If people can suffer these things for the venomous pleasure of hatred, why do so few become poor out of love?”
Again, Thomas Merton writes,
“We must not imagine that the way of self-denial is always a way of tranquility and uninterrupted peace. It does not resolve all doubts and deliver us from every care as if by magic.
“Self-denial attunes us to the Spirit of God and the Spirit may not always sing a tune that harmonizes with our nature. There may be terrible discords instead of tranquil harmonies.
“Self-denial brings order into our lives sometimes in the form of an apparent disorder, and we may sometimes have to find peace as best we can in the midst of confusion.”
Bernard of Clairvaux wrote this in the twelfth century:
“O sacred head, now wounded, With grief and shame weighed down, Now scornfully surrounded With thorns, your only crown. O sacred head, what glory And bliss did once combine; Though now despised and gory, I joy to call you mine!
“How pale you are with anguish, With sore abuse and scorn! Your face, your eyes now languish, Which once were bright as morn. Now from your cheeks has vanished Their color once so fair; From loving lips is banished The splendor that was there.
“What language can I borrow To thank you, dearest friend, For this your dying sorrow, Your mercy without end? Bind me to you forever, Give courage from above; Let not my weakness sever Your bond of lasting love.”
Posted by John
at 12:01 AM CST
