Column Awed by 900 years of Trappist prayer, silence
By ROBERT F. DRINAN
I was peaceful but sad as I left the
Trappist Monastery in Spencer, Mass., after making an eight-day retreat. I was
at peace after spending wondrous days at such a haunting place. But I was sad
that so many, including myself, fail to heed the compelling Trappist message
that the abandonment of self is the beginning of tranquility and joy.
As I concelebrated Mass each morning at 6:30 with 91 Trappists and
eight retreatants I learned anew the power of prayer for the church. The monks
had begun their day at 3:30 a.m. with the chanting of the Divine Office
followed by an hour of meditation. They would continue their life of prayer
throughout the day with matins, lauds, vespers and compline.
As I ended the day singing the psalms of compline and, along with
all the monks, receiving the blessing of the abbot, I was overwhelmed with the
realization that across the globe the Trappists, the Trappistines, the
Carmelites and all of the contemplative orders pray day after day, year after
year for my sanctification and that of the church. We are all linked in the
mystical body like members of a family. God created a church so that all of its
followers could love him and each other by prayer and by works.
All of this is basic Catholicism. But it became almost startlingly
clear as I felt awed at the silent, robed Trappists walking to chapel and
chanting the prayer that was invented centuries before the Trappists came into
existence in the year 1099. I stand in admiration at the 900 years of Trappist
prayer and silence. It is awesome and overwhelming. You feel insignificant for
eight days as you observe and participate in this miracle of grace. The living
church is majestic, wondrous, manifestly divine.
Just to know of this spiritual power strengthens your faith in the
holiness of the church. Heretics, schisms and scandals come and go, but the
church in prayer goes on. In every generation, God raises up purified souls who
abandon family, fame and fortune to be able to talk with God all of the
day.
Why dont the contemplative orders attract more vocations?
Their life is so attractive and valuable. But so many of us are trapped in the
addiction to baubles that we do not even hear the call to a life that is filled
with peace and joy beyond understanding.
Although some years ago I made a retreat with the Trappists, I was
so overwhelmed this time that I found it hard to quantify what I learned or
make concrete what I seek to do. But I know that some important changes came to
my life. I have a much deeper reverence and gratitude for the praying church. I
am awed (there is no other word) at those who have given up learning and all
other things in order to be in the direct presence of the Holy Trinity at all
hours of the day.
By their very being, they challenge our priorities. They stand as
a daily rebuke to our attention to the frivolous and the inconsequential. They
remind us of what we could have become. Most important, they pray ceaselessly
that we will return to the path to holiness we renounced in a thousand quiet
ways down the arches of the years.
Jesuit Fr. Robert Drinan is a professor at Georgetown
University Law Center.
National Catholic Reporter, October 1,
1999
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