hesitant contemplatives - 15th wk tuesday Carmel's 8th day novena 2020

These past months many of us had been given a firsthand experience of what contemplative life is, even if it is just a glimpse, even if it is just a taste, even if for many of us it was and is an unwelcome experience.  Nevertheless, it was an experience of contemplative life.  There was less movement, we stayed put most often, we stayed at home confined in the four walls of our houses.  And as the quarantine progressed and became longer, the silence too became lengthier.  First there were small gaps in the conversation and the gaps became longer each day because everyday there were less experiences to talk about.  

We experienced how it was to surrender our freedoms and experienced how it was to live under the rule of obedience – wear your facemasks, observe social distancing, stay in line, wait in line, and for a time we were even told not to go to church.  And many of us humbly followed, some willingly, some hesitantly, many grugingly. 

In all these what was most upsetting for many was the daily routine, when life became routinary, when today becomes almost the exact copy of yesterday.  We tried to break the routine with gardening and with netflix, and after some time, even the gardening and the netflix became routine.  Life became boring at first for many, then it became depressing for some.

Covid 19 will not go away for quite some time.  I think it loves our government’s response, and I believe it will linger for a while.  

And so this is where Carmel enters our dire picture - let us allow Carmel to teach us how to live to the full our new found contemplative life and probably even come to enjoy it, and profit from it . . . who knows.

Two things.

First, our first reading ends with the injunction, “unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm.”  What is absent in our supposedly newfound contemplative life is God, prayer, faith.  Contemplative life is a balanced life.  It is a balance between work and prayer.  It is a balance between what I can do and what I allow God to do.  Balance.  We are not in the new normal.  No.  This is the normal.  The abnormal was taken away from us by Covid 19.  Balance.  Life is not all work.  Life is not all activity.  Life is not all career.  Balance.  Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm.

For only God can provide meaning to what we are going through.  Take away God and you become crazy.  But with God our living to the basic minimum becomes simplicty.  The grim reality that you can be infected, I can be infected, if I am not careful means my life is not my own.  That our silence is listening and it is a big part of every conversation.  That we may be isolated and separated, but we know we serve each other in many ways - only with God, only with prayer, only with faith, because “unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm.”

Second, what was the sin of Bethsaida?  Why did it merit the woe of Jesus?  What was the sin of Chorazin?  The sin of of Bethsaida and Chorazin was their inability to be amazed, it was their inability to marvel, it was their inability even just to see, just to see and recognize what Jesus was doing in their midst. 

And this is what Carmel is teaching us in contemplative life.  Contemplation is not isolation.  Contemplation is not separation from the concerns of people.  Contemplation is not running away from the problems of the world.  Contemplation is attentiveness.  Attentiveness to God, attentiveness to others.  To allow oneself to be amazed by the giftedness of life and health.  To allow ourselves to be amazed by providence and generosity of God through his people, so many generous people?  To allow oneself to be amazed by the giftedness of persons, of doctors, nurses, and health workers who bravely risk getting infected in their service to others. To allow oneself to be affected and to be pained by the sufferings of those who are sick, those who have lost a loved one, those who have lost jobs.

The contemplative life is a hidden life, lived quietly, lived away from the glare, but we are not in hiding, we are not isolated.  We ride the trisikad even if the destination is short because we know that somebody has to earn his keep and feed his family.  We hire students to work odd jobs for us so that they would not stop going to school.   We hire gardeners even as an extra expense, we hire a labandera instead of using a machine because we know the pain and the insecurity of being out of work.

We are contemplatives, we are not running away from the pains of the world, rather we embrace its pains and ease them the best way we can, even with the little that we have.

Two things in being contemplatives, willing contemplatives, joyful contemplatives.  First, balance, balance your life.  “Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm.”  Second, attentiveness - attentiveness to God, attentiveness to others.