Make me a priest!

SSM 2iv

Dear Thomas,

As you talked about your experience yesterday I sensed that you were being drawn toward, rather than driven away. And then came your description of what was happening at that moment:

"It was a strong and sweet and deep and insistent attraction that suddenly made itself felt, but not as movement of appetite towards any sensible good. It was something in the order of conscience, a new and profound and clear sense that this was what I really ought to do."

Often a characteristic of the movement of God is difficult to describe, and so we use words like 'felt', and 'sense'.

Then, in my experience, and in my study of the works of Ignatius, I am prompted to look at the entire experience. For Ignatius says that:

"If in the course of our thoughts or our actions we find that from the beginning to end our eyes have remained fixed on the Lord, we can be sure that the good spirit has been moving us...."

So when you mentioned that you continued on your walk, and then 'some kind of instinct' prompted you to go St Francis Xavier church, I recognized the middle of the experience. Thoughts were leading to action, but the action of an explorer who trusted his guide.

The doors of the church were locked. Can you describe this moment? What was the spirit saying to you at this moment?

Then, a basement door catches your eye. And "ordinarily I would not have noticed such a door." Then you stated:

"But something prompted me: 'Try that door.'"

There it is! Do you see? The unknown that we only can call 'something' because we haven't enough experience to know what to call this presence, this 'something'. All that matters now is that you recall that moment, as God's own desire and your desire met. There it is!

You may think that the climax of the experience came later after entering the basement of the church to find yourself at the end of a novena service, saying aloud to Him- "Yes I want to be a priest, with all my heart I want it. If it is Your will, make me a priest-make me a priest."
But I tell you, it is that 'something' that you will return to, again and again.

A Saint?

SSM 2ii

Dear Thomas,

I am not confused or disappointed that in response to my question about whom you wish to become you have settled upon, after first responding 'a famous author', the more ambitious 'a saint'. We often run away from that word because it conjures up some polished image of Ignatius or Francis or Theresa that ignores the humanness that surely was as present in them as it is in you.
Perhaps the desire to be an author, famous or not, and the desire to be a saint are not as disconnected as you think. Both are susceptible to attachments.
You stated that you see our community as full of people that want to be kind and pleasant and love good things and serve God, but they do not know how. And they do not know how to find out.
Was Benedict a saint because he performed miracles, or because he knew how to help his community of monks find out how to love and serve God? And he was, among other things, an author.
Start with this. Want to be a saint.

Ignatius- 1st Principle and Foundation

We are created to praise, reverence and serve God our Lord and by this means to save our souls.

The other things on the face of the earth are created for us to help us in attaining the end for which we are created.

Hence, we are to make use of them in as far as they help us in the attainment of our end and we must rid ourselves of them in as far as they prove a hindrance to us. Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things, as far as we are allowed free choice and are not under any prohibition. Consequently, as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life. That same holds for all other things.

Our one destire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.

Self-Simplification

Cairn Holy, Scotland








Dear xxx,

In each sentence of your latest letter I hear the interference of attachment. You write of your desire to enter into the heart of a great unity with the divine, but I hear anxiety over money and a desire to 'matter' to a world that will soon forget you. These are distractions that test the authenticity of your desire to enter into that unity.

Most disturbing is the obsession with freeing yourself of all sin. The desire to possess a life free of sin (in your letter you complain of sloth as you waste time watching television) is in itself a kind of attachment. You focus on making that happen through discipline, rather than through non-attachment. The effort to detach is not the same as the surrender to non-attachment. Just ask yourself, next time you are watching television and feeling sinful for wasting time, what is it that I am avoiding? What fear must I let go of in order to relax into that which I know is pulling me toward the divine?

There it is. That offer which God lays in front of us then turns away so as not to cause us embarrassment when we refuse to pick it up. No wonder when we choose our attachments we feel at once the freedom of self-fulfillment and the sting of disappointment.

Ask God to stay, not to look away, so that you may choose the path God has laid out and see.

The Sleeping Man

Dear xxx,

You ask me for assistance in guiding you to some 'practices' that might be helpful to you in your desire for a more complete spiritual life. It is always difficult to answer such a request at the beginning of spiritual companioning.

Wisdom men and women who are wiser than me in this area suggest that the first place to begin is to 'wake up'. Not from that rest which we all need; we all need a good nap now and then. But to wake up to what is happening around you in the splendor of the present moment.

As you walk down this busy street of your life, what do you notice out of all that is presented to you from your senses before your analytic mind comments on it? What is actually happening in this moment that is beyond the reach of your senses? Are you aware that that tree has struggled to live outside of the field? That the wood in that fence was sacrificed from a living entity in some faraway wood? That the passerby has a story to tell about how they feel right now in this moment?

So the first step, beyond the desire itself to enter into a new consciousness, is to notice what is occurring all around you right now. Allow yourself to sense the world around you from perspectives other than your own, to allow for other possibilities and other frames of reference. Mine the richness of that moment.

Start there, in the moments of everyday existence, and awaken to what is happening. Then as you reflect on your day (an important part of the practice), recollect those experiences, and notice, if you can, what seemed unusual to you. This takes practice, but is an essential first step towards moving into a deeper spiritual life.

I look forward to your next letter.

Freedom from the False Self

Dear Xnnnnnn,

I totally understand your admiration of Merton. He seems to speak to us as pilgrims along the way, sometimes as if he is a companion at our side, and other times as the leader showing us the way.

Merton often tells us that we are not spiritually free unless we are free from depending on external conditions, or others, for our responses to reality. So I am not surprised that his statement in one of his letters that "All that stuff which comprises our 'false self', what I like or dislike, is not important" caught your attention in prayer. The contemplative recognizes this desire in themselves to cast off the false self, IF ONLY HE or SHE KNEW HOW!

We know that this desire, and the spirit to pursue it, comes from God. Those who glimpse moments of losing the false self do so in tandem with Grace. Still, the contemplative believes in turning intentionally toward God.

There are many ways to begin, the masters of our faith tradition tell us. You ask me in your letter about this. How can you begin to recognize the false self? How can you get in touch with your true self?
Begin with practice. As your director I can suggest that you begin to name your dislikes and likes. So every day, as part of your prayer practice, write down, or say aloud, or converse with a friend, a list of what is important to you that day, and what is not important that day. The task right now is not to judge what comes up. The task is simply to name. Intentionally.

Distinguishing the False Self

"When everything is taken away, you can still be free and that is true freedom, and this is why we are here, to find this out." - Thomas Merton


Dear Xxxxxx,

Thank you for your letter. I value deeply the level of sharing in it.

Your description of the 'separation' experience when you were 13 is of such a personal nature that it is humbling to be asked to comment on it. However this was a moment when you were shown the 'otherness' of the false self, the self that your two friends conspired against, probably an innocent example of adolescent positioning for popularity.
In the moment that you described as one of profound aloneness, in which you observed your false self as a rejected friend, that observer, while sensing the hurt, also had the qualities of the freedom and eternal life that characterize the true self. God stood with you as you felt this sense of confidence in the inner self. It is not uncommon for adolescents to experience this, but to KNOW that you experienced it is grace. It should not surprise you that you didn't recall this experience until years later. It should also not surprise you that when you did recollect, the memory was as vivid and colorful as if it happened yesterday.
You can now see, through the same lenses, that the observer in that experience is the same as the observer who is now reading and reflecting on this letter. The false self has also evolved in the time since, in wisdom, in age, in joy and woundedness, but that true self, you will probably understand, has not changed one bit.

The freedom that comes from such an experience and the recollection of it, and the grace that shows it to be an anchor to the true self, has now given you a compass with which to find that same self in each experience, not only in reflection. May it now help you to be open to all that has never happened before.