Hermitage Notes - Fear And Its Antidote

Fear.

It is hard to not see it in the eyes of people. It is hard to not sense it working to make these times more difficult than they already are.

Going into this season, I made a commitment to learn and grow through it rather than wrestle and fight against it. If going through this hard season holds no profit of conversatio morum [conversion of life] for me as a student of Saint Benedict, then the going through is marred with futility. I will dare to say that this same principle holds true for all who consider themselves to be followers of Christ. If there is no spiritual growth, no deepening steps in maturing into the image of Christ, then the going has been in vain.

I am reminded of something that Abba Moses said in response to a monk who came seeking his advice about living in the isolation that was part of the life of hermits in the desert. Abba Moses told him, "Sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything."

Abba's advice is not far removed from what our Father Abbot Benedict tells those who come to him inquiring of his school. Saint Benedict says, "Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart."

There are some things that I have to continually remind myself of as an Oblate of Saint Benedict; especially in light of the reality that there is no real end in sight for this Covid-19 season that is affecting all of us in one way or another.

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Fear is a terrible taskmaster. 

It is the antithesis of faith, the enemy of hope, and is efficient at begetting anger, hatred, aggression and a host of other selfish emotional responses.  

Fear is the multi-faceted fruit of the fallen nature of humanity. One of its facets is an indication of rebellion against God’s revealed will.

They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’  [Genesis 3:8-10]

Fear is the base upon which human pride and arrogance perform their vicious soul-destroying works. [I am afraid. Therefore, I will promote my betterment even to the detriment and degradation of others.] How many ways does this truism find application in the modern world?

Fear is Satan’s work.

Love is the only effective antidote and remedy for fear and its fruit.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. 

[1 John 4:18]

It is to this end [love] that we are called as followers of Jesus.

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadduccees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.  [Matthew 22:34-40]

The whole heart?

As myself?

How easy it is to defend ourselves where the commandment to love is concerned. How easy it is to justify ourselves and make excuses for choosing lesser standards that require less of us. How easy it is to attempt rationalizing and qualifying who is worthy to merit our love despite the obvious implications found in The Parable of the Good Samaritan [Luke 10:25-37].

Who is this Lord who calls us to love even [especially] those who are our persecutors and enemies?

You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.  [Matthew 5:43-48].

Who is this Lord?

He is our Lord.

This same unchanging Lord is with us as we stumble our way through this season. He will be with us on the other side of it regardless of what the other side of it looks like.

Saint Benedict, and all the Saints, pray for me.

Ripe Grapes

Dear Ones,

I had completely forgotten about a folder in the way-back room of my archives that contains a compilation of short reflective essays ... an unpublished book entitled Wandering the Less Worn Path dating pre-2009. 

I stumbled upon it this morning, blew the dust off the cover, and looked inside.

Here is an excerpt from Wandering the Less Worn Path entitled Ripe Grapes written long before any of us had any reason to imagine the isolating conditions that have been created by this Covid-19 pandemic.

Please know that all of you remain in our thoughts and prayers.

Peace be with you,

David

“A man who lives apart from other men is like a ripe grape. And a man who lives in the company of others is a sour grape.” (Abbot Moses – The Wisdom of the Desert)

Why is it that we work so hard at surrounding ourselves with things that synthetically entertain our senses?  Why is it that we are so eager to involve ourselves in activities with others so that precious little of our time is spent alone? 

We’ve been conditioned to think there is something frightful about the idea of being still and alone – that it’s unnatural and anti-social to withdraw into silence. And we are afraid to disengage long enough to meet our selves in the presence of God in an atmosphere that reveals the honest contents of our hearts, contents that develop and grow into motivating desires and ambitions.

Simply being alone for a period of time is no guarantee that one will discover solitude and meet with God. There must also be a certain intensity of intention. Simply being alone to discourse with one’s self on matters of personal interest is nothing more than meeting in the board room of one’s own corporate self to discuss personal business plans. 

Discovering, developing, and entering into solitude is, in itself, an admission that there is no solace in the material things of this world. It is an admission that the quality of our being is still yet unformed and needing to mature like the natural elements in a grape that form into sugar when a grape has had time to ripen on the vine.

We need to guard against the way the world’s noise and our active engagement with it tend to deflect us from the deeper realities of life. The noise of the world and the din of our own living can easily deaden our souls and subdue our hearts. 

It is important, too, to realize that the desire for solitude isn’t simply an effort to flee from the world. 

This would lessen the importance of solitude. It is more an attempt to run toward God, to know God and our selves better, and to hear God’s voice in the midst of the din of the world. Equally, we are not, as some think, shirking our responsibilities to humanity by refusing to personally engage in every conflict that presents itself.

Solitude, as said by Thomas Merton, helps us to “recuperate spiritual powers that may have been gravely damaged by the noise and rush of a pressurized existence.”

We simply need to discover the value of being alone with our selves and with God. Solitude counters modern pressurized living and arrests its effects upon our lives.

There has never been a time in the history of humankind like the one we are living in. Life in this all-too-real world is becoming more frenzied by the day. If we allow it, this modern frenzy will pull us apart at our seams and destroy the very genuine fabric of our interior lives. 

Hermitage Notes - These 40 Days

Five weeks and five days. 

Today is Day 40 of hunkering down to wait out the ravaging effects of this Covid-19 challenge.

We did not wait for the shelter in place mandate to be issued by the Governor. As for me and my house, we decided to self-sequester once the Archbishop lifted the Sunday requirement to attend Mass.

Some people that we know took exception to our decision. 

Some people that we know, for that matter, take exception to the fact that we support the decisions of our civic leaders insisting upon social distancing and the necessary health crisis closures.

The simple truth of the matter is that times like these have a way of bringing out the best in some and the worst in some. Emotional reactions to differences of opinions have become highly inflamed.

Some are afraid. Some are angry. Some are making accusations. Some are purely apathetic. Some are interpreting the crisis through the conspiracy lens. Some are defying the orders and participating in protests in defiance and disobedience.

It is interesting how this span of 40 days of time has caused us to think about things as they relate to life here in our little hermitage in the woods. It is interesting how it has made us wrestle with and confront ourselves; how it has caused us to examine the things that motivate and drive us to do the things we do. It is interesting how it has affirmed our belief in the importance of learning how to simply be still … not only in the midst of a storm that rages but even more so within ourselves in the ordinary give and take of life.

I cannot help but to think about the 40 days and nights when Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness as he prepared himself to begin his earthly ministry. [Matthew 4:1-11]

During that 40-day season of fasting and praying, Satan bombarded Jesus with temptations. This same Jesus, in the midst of this pandemic storm, calls us all … especially those of us that profess to know him … to examine the motives and morals that we live by and make the necessary adjustments that bring us closer to him and his model for living.

As for the protests, clamoring, and challenging of the social conditions that have been imposed upon us by our elected civic leaders? I can understand them from the perspective of worldlings. I cannot, however, justify them from the perspective of a follower of Jesus.

I will dare to say that as long as we are not being told to do something that is contrary to the moral laws that God’s people are to live by, then we are obliged to honor the imposed stipulations … like them or not.

I remind myself that this is the plain and simple directions contained in the New Testament Scriptures – directions that I am obliged to live by if I indeed consider myself to be a follower of Jesus.

Both the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter address this.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good.” [The Apostle Paul to the Romans, 13:1-4a]

“Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing right you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” [The Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 2:13-17]

The one who drew his sword and cut off the ear of the High Priest’s servant [John 18-10] tells us to put away our swords and get out of the business of anarchy; even when our obedience to God’s directions cause us to be led as sheep to the slaughter. [Psalm 44:2, Romans 8:36]

These are definitely trying times that are affecting all of us. The associated uncertainties can become overwhelming if we allow them the strength to overcome us. The first thought running through my consciousness as I awoke this morning confronts these uncertainties and their challenges.

That thought?

The Bible is full of examples of people that faced monumental challenges and obstacles. By keeping their focus on God … in keeping their faith and trust in him … they not only met the challenges and obstacles head on but also made their way victoriously through them.

We are doing our uttermost here at our little hermitage-like cabin in the woods to not just live through these times but to also learn and grow through the challenges. 

There is so much more to this than merely surviving some hard times for the sake of physical survival. Our already embraced hermit-like lifestyle has definitely been an advantage. It does not remove the roughness of the edges but we are afforded a measure of control over them.

UP ON MOUNT EREMOS - Reflections on the Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount is the keynote address of Jesus introducing the new age which he came to usher in.

It would be an era where love would be the mainspring powering the life and movement of those who yielded themselves to God. 

It also happened that it would be an era at complete variance with any self-promoting Pharisaic ideal. There is no room or margin available for self-promotion in a world of self-sacrifice.

Jesus plainly stated this law of love to the lawyer that tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus answered him saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two hang all the law and the prophets.” [Matthew 22:34-40]

In his life and earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus set into motion a way of life that was completely countercultural during his time; not only for the little Nation of Israel but also for the nations of the entire world.

In launching this movement, Jesus fulfilled all the righteous judicial requirements necessary to purchase, once and forever, the salvation of mankind. He also, in making this purchase with his own sufferings and blood, confirmed and carried forward, for all of time, the unchangeable moral laws that God the Father carved into stone tablets on Mount Sinai for Moses to give to the Israelites.

This way of life modeled by Jesus, his Apostles and disciples, and untold thousands across the ages is as countercultural today as it was when Jesus sat down on the side of Mount Eremos and began teaching those who had begun to follow him. This way of life has lost none of its meaning over the millennia. It refuses to get lost in the shuffle of modern charlatans that weave tales and promise lives characterized by fortune and devoid of suffering. This way of life will never bow down to the false gods of materialistic modernism or bend a knee to the false gods of hedonism. This way of life refuses to yield or surrender the moral principles insisted upon by our God who never changes and is not so fickle as to change his mind about what he has already decreed.

God is not a human being, that he should lie,

or a mortal, that he should change his mind.

Has he promised, and will he not do it?

Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Numbers 23:19

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:7

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:8

It is before this holy, eternal, and unchanging God that we must all one day give account for what we have done both for and against the unchangeable moral expectations that are clearly laid down for us and confirmed in the life of the Living Word.

Jesus asks a question at the end of the Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge. He asks, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:1-8

What will he find when he returns? Will he find a people living the way of life that he himself modeled as an example? Or will he find a people meandering about, rationalizing, picking, and choosing only what parts of this way of life that can be bent in a way that makes them culturally comfortable?

In my mind’s eye, I can see him sitting there on that big hill with a crowd of people surrounding him.

They are mostly just poor hand-to-mouth common folk, mostly just everyday hard working souls making do day by day; except for the few around the edges of the crowd that look like some of the religious rulers of the day. While most of the people are intently quietly listening, these few better dressed ones listen a little then confer among themselves, almost as though they are trying to find some heresy or blasphemy in the words of the Teacher.

I am going up on Mount Eremos for a while.

I feel the need to get closer to Jesus, closer than I have ever been. I feel the need to simply sit at his feet and learn better of this countercultural way of life that he teaches. I feel the need to know him more intimately than ever before. Just as the Apostle Paul wrote, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” [Philippians 3:10-11]

There is a lot of room up on the big hillside where Jesus is sitting. 

Come along with me.

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I had planned to launch this series from out on the road. Covid-19, however, changed our plans to live as Bedouins for a long season out and about on something of a pilgrimage. [Alas! How the best laid plans of mice and men do gang aft agley.] So, I am launching UP ON MOUNT EREMOS from here at our hermitage/cabin.  

These written reflections on the Sermon on the Mount at Oblate Reflections will also be accompanied by a video format on my Psalty Catholic YouTube channel.

Most Sweet Jesus - An Act of Reparation

I offer this Act of Reparation primarily for myself.

Yet, in offering it for myself, I also realize the need to offer it on behalf of all of us; that, in and through all that is this Covid-19 season, we might do only that which is pleasing to God and a true reflection of our gratitude for the Sacrifice that Jesus made of himself on the Cross for humanity.

This Act of Reparation is from the Enchiridion of Indulgences, 1968.

Most sweet Jesus, whose overflowing charity for men is requited by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt, behold us prostrate before you, eager to repair by a special act of homage the cruel indifference and injuries to which your loving Heart is everywhere subject.

Mindful, alas! that we ourselves have had a share in such great indignities, which we now deplore from the depths of our hearts, we humbly ask your pardon and declare our readiness to atone by voluntary expiation, not only for our own personal offenses, but also for the sins of those, who, straying far from the path of salvation, refuse in their obstinate infidelity to follow you, their Shepherd and Leader, or, renouncing the promises of their baptism, have cast off the sweet yoke of your law.

We are now resolved to expiate each and every deplorable outrage committed against you; we are now determined to make amends for the manifold offenses against Christian modesty in unbecoming dress and behavior, for all the foul seductions laid to ensnare the feet of the innocent, for the frequent violations of Sundays and holy-days, and the shocking blasphemies uttered against you and your Saints. We wish also to make amends for the insults to which your Vicar on earth and your priests are subjected, for the profanation, by conscious neglect or terrible acts of sacrilege, of the very Sacrament of your divine love, and lastly for the public crimes of nations who resist the rights and teaching authority of the Church which you have founded.

Would that we were able to wash away such abominations with our blood. We now offer, in reparation for these violations of your divine honor, the satisfaction you once made to your Eternal Father on the cross and which you continue to renew daily on our altars; we offer it in union with the acts of atonement of your Virgin Mother and all the Saints and of the pious faithful on earth; and we sincerely promise to make recompense, as far as we can with the help of your grace, for all neglect of your great love and for the sins we and others have committed in the past. Henceforth, we will live a life of unswerving faith, of purity of conduct, of perfect observance of the precepts of the Gospel and especially that of charity. We promise to the best of our power to prevent others from offending you and to bring as many as possible to follow you.

O loving Jesus, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mother, our model in reparation, deign to receive the voluntary offering we make of this act of expiation; and by the crowning gift of perseverance keep us faithful unto death in our duty and the allegiance we owe to you, so that we may all one day come to that happy home, where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, God, forever and ever. Amen.

[A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful, who piously recite the above act of reparation. A plenary indulgence is granted if it is publicly recited on the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.]

Living The Rule - Benedict's Tools 8

[Note: This Reflection is a continuation of reflections considering THE TOOLS FOR GOOD WORKS in Chapter 4 of the Rule of Saint Benedict.]

The Liturgical Season of Lent is behind us. The huge reality, though the liturgical colors have changed, is that we are yet, in so many ways we are not accustomed to, still living a Lent such as none of us have ever experienced.

It was my intention, going into the Liturgical Season of Lent, to back up from things in order to focus more intently upon my own Lenten journey. Little did I know, little did any of us know, that our Lenten journeys would include the personal realities associated with this virus that has direly affected the entire global community. In backing up, while some areas were put on hold, other areas came into play that required personal attention and energies.

Personally, I think we need times like these.

Times like these come along to test our faith. They come along to show us where our trust and confidence are placed. They come along to show us where our personal values are. They come along to show us that we are indeed, fractured and divided by opinions and languages though we are, one humanity.

None of us will ever be the same on the other side of this pandemic.

Some of us will grow and bear fruit in the deeper realities to be garnered during these difficult times. Some of us [probably most of us] will return again to wholeheartedly chasing after the self-satisfying and ego-inflating things of the world.[1] Our lives, one way or the other, will continue to promulgate the contents and conditions that rule our hearts.

I think it is rather appropriate how, in picking up where I left off at the beginning of Lent and considering all the uncertainties that are ahead of us where this Covid-19 is concerned, the Rule of Saint Benedict speaks to these times and offers guidance as to how to approach life as it unfolds on the backside of the pandemic. The Rule is timeless. Its principles are as valid in the 21^st Century as they were in the 6^th Century and every Century between.  

Saint Benedict tells his students …

To listen willingly to holy reading.

To apply one's self often to prayer.

To confess one's past sins to God daily in prayer with sighs and tears, and to amend them for the future.

Not to fulfil the desires of the flesh (cf Gal 5:16).

To hate one's own will.[2]

Many of the monks in Saint Benedict’s day came from impoverished backgrounds. Many of them were illiterate and ignorant. These depended upon “hearing” not only the Holy Scriptures read to them but also the Rule of Saint Benedict and the writings of the Fathers.[3]

Unlike in Benedict’s day, a great deal of the ignorance of these modern times is not because of illiteracy. A few in our modern western culture are illiterate but not many. The ignorance is because people choose to follow the tunes of modern pipers piping tunes that are pleasing to modern enculturated tastes; tunes that ignore the historical testimonies and interpretations of those closest to the Source.

The farther we go this side of those historical testimonies and interpretations, the more convoluted and outrageous the heresies become. The onus, then, is on us to examine every modern interpretation in the light of the old lest we fall prey and become captives of modern well-disguised heresies.

You would think that Benedict’s monks prayed enough considering they prayed all the offices, including Vigils. Yet, here we find Benedict telling his students to pray even more.

Benedict was careful to delineate between a prescribed community prayer life and a spontaneous personal prayer life; all of which holds the potential to produce the fruit of contemplation in the lives of those who yield themselves to their cultivation where, in the cultivation, we are “carried away by God into his own realm, his own mystery, and his own freedom. It is a pure and virginal knowledge, poor in concepts, poorer still in reasoning, but able, by its very poverty and purity, to follow the Word wherever he may go.”[4]

Is this not where the deepest desires in the very depths of our deepest heart of hearts desires to go? Is this not the purest direction in seeking God? If this is not our motive for seeking God, is not our motive for seeking him askew and in need of correction?

Saint Benedict tells me to never acquire and develop a cavalier and nonchalant attitude about sin and my own sinful nature. He insists that I never cease to sorrowfully remember my own personal sinful participation in the reason why Christ suffered the brutality of the Cross.

I cannot look upon the image of Christ on the Cross without experiencing an overwhelming sense of appreciation and gratitude for the sacrifice that he made of himself - in part because of me and my own actual sins. Here, in gazing upon the Crucified Christ, I most deeply realize what I can of the unfathomable love of God for me. How can I ever look upon the Crucified Christ without thinking of the words of the Psalmist where he wrote, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”[5]

Though I have confessed those sins, though I been reconciled and received Absolution, yet, I do not forget the terrible price that Christ paid to redeem me from the penalty of those sins. In recollection of them I am continually reminded of the necessity of living in a way now that makes amendment for the harm I have done to myself and, more importantly, to others in the past. Space is made for humility to flourish.

Saint Benedict reminds me that I am to be continually on guard against yielding to the desires of the flesh that lead to doing the works of the flesh … immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like.[6]

Why such a prohibition? 

Because those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.[7][8]

Then, in verse 60, Saint Benedict tells his students to hate the urgings of their will that beg them to consider or think about returning to those patterns of sinful behavior that will lead them to perdition.

Early on in the Prologue of the Rule, Saint Benedict mentions taking these seeds of temptation to task and foiling “the evil one, the devil, at every turn, flinging both him and his promptings far from the sight of his heart. While these temptations were still young, he caught hold of them and dashed them against Christ.[9]

Pray for one another. PAX

David

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[1] 1 John 2:16

[2] Holy Rule 4:55-60

[3] Holy Rule 73

[4] Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, © 1961, p.5

[5] Psalm 51:3

[6] Galatians 5:19-21

[7] Galatians 5:21

[8] Douay-Rheims translates Galatians 5:19-21 - [19] Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, [20] Idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects,

[21] Envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.

[9] Holy Rule Prologue 28

In Frightening Questioning Times

Today is Day 32 for us.

It was, for us, a rational and thought out step.

There was nothing knee-jerk about it. 

It was not fear-motivated. 

It was, in every sense, simply the right thing to do. We did not wait for the Governor to issue the Stay At Home order to begin practicing this social distancing thing.

Our age is a huge determining factor. Our personal physical conditions are a huge determining factor. Neither of us are afforded the luxury of throwing caution to the wind. As importantly, neither of us desire to be carriers that transmit this highly communicable virus to anyone; especially to someone with health conditions that easily allow the virus to kill them.

How has this choice, and the subsequent mandate, affected us personally?

It has hardly had an effect on our day to day lives.

Our way of life, considering that we are practically hermits to begin with, is pretty simple. Social distancing, for us, is already something of a lifestyle that we have adopted and tailored to fit our retirement years. We have been practicing it for quite a while now and personally thrive in solitude. It is not that we have become anti-social. It is that we have become extremely selective-social.

The great hardship imposed upon us personally by this Covid-19 season is that we are not able to attend Mass at the little parish that has become so dear to us. Public Masses in our Archdiocese have now [as of today] been suspended indefinitely. We are not surprised. Our hearts still sink within us at the news.  

Everything else associated with this pandemic, for us anyway, is nothing more than inconveniences. 

Everything else … except for the sickness, suffering, and death of others … except for the obvious struggles and anxiety of others that is so easily sensed … everything else except for the sensed obvious fear and paranoia that grips so many. Things like these are not inconveniences.  We feel them. We are deeply affected by things like these.

None of us have ever lived through such a time as this one.

We are being forced, by this virus and the stay at home orders, to isolate ourselves until the “powers that be” determine that it is practical and safe to rub elbows with one another and go about life as it once was before the virus. Isolation can be extremely difficult. In the stillness of isolation, regardless of how much exterior noise we make, we are forced to reckon with the noise of unsettled things in our interiority.

I do wonder.

I cannot help but to wonder.

Will life go back to what it was before the pandemic or will we all have to discover a new sense of normal on the other side of it? Only God knows. With this so fresh upon us, and with plenty of time to go before it is behind us, I am honestly leaning toward some version of the latter of the two possible outcomes.

In frightful questioning times like these … both the best and the worst within ourselves is forced to meet in a face to face wrestling match. In frightful questioning times like these … we are forced to grapple with the reality that [as much as we like to think we are] none of us are in control of what tomorrow will hold in store. It is also in frightful questioning times like these that the quality of our faith in God is put to the test.

We all face a lot of “unknowns” where this virus and the outplaying of the future is concerned. All of us face these unknowns with either faith or fear. Without faith in God, varying degrees of fearfulness will prevail to determine our personal outlooks and actions. Fearful responses and actions will always betray [as opposed to portray] confidence and trust in God. Fearful responses and actions will always lead us into deeper despair and fearfulness.

I am reminded of something that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.” [Matthew 6:34] This “therefore” comes at the end of his teaching about the Father being able to take care of us. You know the one about the birds of the air and the lilies in the field.

I am reminded, too, of something Saint Padre Pio tells us: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”

I certainly hope that at this point in my life in Christ, in my own conversatio morum, that I have wrestled enough with my own carnal nature so that the better side of me shows through in these frightful questioning times … that my life and words reflect the light and love of Christ in a way that causes Saint Benedict to say to Christ … “See that one, Lord. He is one of my students.”