During a recent visit to Massachusetts St. Joseph's Abbey, located in Spencer, provided me a hour to reconnect with a holy man, Dom Basil Pennington. Several years ago, Fr. Basil died as a result of injuries suffered in an automobile accident. After some time in the community chapel, I walked to his grave. There I became involved in a rather lengthy conversation ... renewing my own spiritual journey with him as I had done during several private meetings with this renowned Trappist priest, abbot and author. Standing at his grave site, I noticed that the occupant of the adjoining grave was also a former Trappist priest and abbot, Dom. M. Raphael Simon. I wondered about Fr. Simon a while. It was again the dash between the years of his birth and death. Surely he must have been a man of intense prayer. Most superiors tell you that it is prayer that makes the office bearable. Preparing for this reflection, I was reading the reflection for today's gospel in Magnificat. What a surprise: the writing was penned by none other than Dom Simon. What he wrote is a magnificent confirmation that prayer can become a part of anyone's life.
Fr. Simon wrote about intimacy, a topic often discussed by many priests and religious. Maybe that sounds strange. However, these men and women know the human need for intimacy, perhaps more than most. Needless to write, but it is important, Fr Simon relates the topic to another frequent topic for spiritual writers ... PRAYER! For this Trappist as well as Fr. Basil, prayer is often a topic of their writings.
In today's world there is such a challenge to many by the reality of intimacy. Why? So often true intimacy, healthy intimacy, is not so present. Intimacy is frightening to many people. Why? Because honesty is the basic foundation on which intimacy is built. Likewise intimacy is a reality that is threatening to many because it opens a person to vulnerability. As regards a person's relationship with God, not matter how rarely or distractedly (??) we bring ourselves to God, there will always be the deep down, sometimes hidden, voice of divine intimacy. As his children, God will always see in us his creation, wanting to lavish love and care upon us.
Fr. Simon points out that prayer comes about because I want to share my own intimacy with God. Failure to have a prayer life seems to be a reflection that we have not made "the leap of faith" that brings us to God. Speaking with many people over many years, my observation is that prayer is a difficulty, especially fidelity to regular prayer, because intimacy with God opens wide the door to our hearts. Open that door and you experience vulnerability. In the intimacy of prayer with God, one's entire life is present, the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly.
Why would a person pray? Fr. Simon writes that acts of reason (intellect) and will look to prayer in the light of faith to answer a need. A person considers prayer, usually, to arouse acts of the heart. It is prayer that will bring a person to prayer, to intimacy with God and even him/herself. In prayer itself, in those moments of intimacy with God, the person praying experiences the challenge to conform the will to the will of God. When the conformity becomes real, then there is true intimacy, true union with God. From this encounter in prayer, we learn what it is that God wants of us; we know what God had in mind for us when he created us.
Fruitful visit to a friend's grave.
