The Catholic Educators Conference
‘Teaching to Transform’
Phoenicia Meridien – Balluta
25th March 2011 at 11.0 a.m.
Alone with the Alone
Recognizing the value of mini retreats to rekindle our spiritual vocation.
Pierre Grech Marguerat S.J.
Centre for Ignatisn Spirituality
There is a silent self within us whose presence is disturbing precisely because it is so silent: it can’t be spoken. It has to remain silent. To articulate it, to verbalize it, is to tamper with it, and in some ways to destroy it.
“Now let us frankly face the fact that our culture is one which is geared in many ways to help us evade any need to face this inner, silent self. We live in a state of constant semi-attention to the sound of voices, music, traffic, or the generalized noise of what goes on around us all the time. This keeps us immersed in a flood of racket and words, a diffuse medium in which our consciousness is half diluted: we are not quite ‘thinking,’ not entirely responding, but we are more or less there. We are not fully present and not entirely absent; not fully withdrawn, yet not completely available. It cannot be said that we are really participating in anything and we may, in fact, be half conscious of our alienation and resentment. Yet we derive a certain comfort from the vague sense that we are ‘part of’ something – although we are not quite able to define what that something is – and probably wouldn’t want to define it even if we could. We just float along in the general noise. Resigned and indifferent, we share semiconsciously in the mindless mind of Muzak and radio commercials which passes for ‘reality.’ “ – From Thomas Merton: Essential Writings
Although the above comments were written over forty years ago, they still ring still ring very true The new technologies have cluttered “our world” even more. Thus the need of time with the Alone. God is definitely not Alone. He is the Transcendent Other and triune God who helps me discover the Other in myself.
“ 1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” 4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” Ex. 3,1-4.
When Moses found himself in front of the burning bush in the desert, he was intrigued by the bush which though it seemed to be burning was not being consumed. This initial phenomenon which attracted his attention led him to look more closely at this bush This capacity to be intrigued is the first step towards letting God come into our lives. Moses was then asked not to come any closer because this was “holy ground” The theme of this “holy ground “ is the focal point of what I would like to talk about this morning.
Where is this “holy ground”? Undoubtedly we have to refer to the heart of the human person. This is a word which is used and abused. The biblical meaning of the word heart, is often shown as the place which is the seat of divine influence. Yet in Matthew 15,19 we Jesus identifies the heart as the source of all that show the human person capable of all forms of depraved behaviours.“19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” Thus the heart is the terrain within the human person where the “good spirit” and the “bad spirit” are at play. This is the terminology used by St Ignatius of Loyola in his classical work known as the Spiritual Exercises.
common parlance this is often the meaning given to the word heart, just the seat for our sentiments and feelings. In Scripture both in the New Testament as well as in the Old Testament the meaning is much deeper and richer. It is the place where the integration of all the rational as well as the emotional and the moral activity are fused together, The well known Jesuit Theologian Karl Rahner defined the heart as the place where I take my decisions. The heart which lies deep within the body on the one hand reveals the true character of the person as well as concealing the real person.. This is very clearly defined in Deuteronomy 6:4 “4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.[a] 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” This is the prayer of the shemah which every practicing Jew repeats five times a day keeps one heart centred and focused on the true reason of our existence. Yet we are not Jews and often do not find or create the time and place in our lives to make this prayer a reality.
The other important element in this account is the place and the context. The desert in Scripture is often the place where one can encounter God. The desert is the place were you are forced to carry the essentials. I will never forget how cold I felt when I climbed on Mount Sinai to spend the night and if it were not for a Polish Jesuit who lent me a jersey I would have frozen to death. The desert is the place for the extremes , the temperature went form 46 degrees Celsius during the day falling to three degrees at night. The desert is the place where we leave all the other frills and we are bare before our God as we are with our needs and fragility. Water, shelter and shade are essential. I have listened to too many accounts of Eritreans, Somalis, Sudanese and Ethiopians who have had to cross the desert. The desert is also the cemetery of thousands of persons. The desert is also the place of temptation. Yet we need to go to the desert as did the People of God, Moses, Elijah, Jesus, Paul and the Fathers of the desert before us. We have to learn to seek solitude and not to fear it so much.
We live in a noisy culture, which literally bombards us with instantaneous information, a good part of it trivial, useless and only creates anxiety and stress in our own lives. I am saying this from my own experience. Two years ago, I was doing my own eight day retreat in Spain and my fellow Jesuit José Roberto, who was directing the retreat, said I have eliminated the radio from my life. It is true that it is so difficult for us to live without the constant noise that clutters our hearts and minds. Yet we are not always aware of this dire need we have for silence. In his Japanese preface to his book Thoughts in Solitude, Merton spoke about listening to the sound of the “winds in the pines”
The illusion that we live in is that we are better informed that we are better equipped to comprehend this fragmented cosmos of ours. Yet the fruits of our contemporary culture is what we daily see around us, persons who are more agitated, stressed out and burnt out, persons who suffer from a lack of integration between their own hearts, minds, emotions, thoughts and feelings and desires. This ensuing emptiness and disfunctionality leads us to ask several questions about our way of life. What can we offer to the young person of our times. Thomas Merton once said “The least of learning is done in class rooms. When I first started teaching after finishing my studies in philosophy, my then rector had suggested that I read a column that was published weekly in the “Times Educational Supplement” in the English newspaper the “Time”. What always struck me in a column entitled ‘My favourite teacher’ is that the authors who were usually teachers themselves, spoke of persons who had left an indelible mark on them. These persons rather than simply passing on information had communicated about their lives, their loves, their integrity, their hopes their beliefs and their faith.
How can we, who are trying to communicate not the content of the subject we teach rather far more than the subject ? In order to communicate our heart’s deepest and most authentic desires we have to be in relationship ourselves with God. I was never a religion teacher myself, though I taught a number of subjects at secondary school and sixth form levels. I think that communicating the deep relationship that inspires our lives is by far the most important matter we can ever share with our students.
Moses call was a call to be with God and because he was capable of listening to what God wanted to communicate to him. Moses had definitely one virtue, humility we rarely speak of any more nowadays as the word might sound too old-fashioned. Humility from the Latin humilitas or, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, from humus, i.e. the earth which is beneath us. As applied to persons and Humility in a higher and ethical sense is that by which a man has a modest estimate of his own worth, is, of the virtue of humility.
Through his humble listening to God, he then became the leader of God’s people. Moses had a privileged place of encounter with God, which meant that he discovered within himself the qualities for leadership. Were these simply innate qualities or did God lead him on to a long journey of discovery. Through his listening Moses learnt that God could be trusted and that He would keep His promise to him and His People. Moses is still a sign for us in troubled times of hope that God can lead us on if we can seek Him in the desert.
Catholic Education Project 