In Holy Week, we know that resurrection and hope are on their way, but not before we face with Jesus the despair of betrayal, abandonment, and death. Brother John of Taizé compares Jesus’ passion to Jonah’s experience of the deep sea:  

Jesus is brought to the lowest place, that place where the all-loving God seems infinitely distant. He enters a universe of utter solitude, meaninglessness, and fragmentation. Like the prophet Jonah, he is overwhelmed by chaos: “You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea, and the flood surrounded me; all your billows and waves have submerged me … The waters closed over me; the deep engulfed me” (Jonah 2:3, 5; Matthew 12:39–40).  

Does this mean that hope has been extinguished once and for all? Is the mission of Jesus a failure? [1] 

For CAC faculty emerita Cynthia Bourgeault, the passion of Jesus reveals a wisdom that enables us to “turn the tide” from despair to empowerment in our own lives: 

The passion is really the mystery of all mysteries, the heart of the Christian faith experience. By the word “passion” here we mean the events which end Jesus’s earthly life: his betrayal, trial, execution on a cross, and death.…  

So much bad, manipulative, guilt-inducing theology has been based on it that it’s fair to wonder whether there is any hope of starting afresh. I believe wisdom does open up that possibility. The key lies in … reading Jesus’s life as a sacrament: a sacred mystery whose real purpose is not to arouse empathy but to create empowerment. In other words, Jesus is not particularly interested in increasing either your guilt or your devotion, but rather, in deepening your personal capacity to make the passage into unitive life…. 

[Jesus] certainly lived in a very intense way the ordeals of betrayal, abandonment, homelessness, and death. Did it have to be like that? If he were indeed here on a divine mission, it would seem that he could have been given an easier career path: chief priest, political leader, the Messiah that people expected him to be…. But none of these opportunities materialized. Why not? Because the path he did walk is precisely the one that would most fully unleash the transformative power of his teaching. It both modeled and consecrated the eye of the needle [DM team: or the belly of the whale] that each one of us must personally pass through in order to accomplish the “one thing necessary” here, according to his teaching: to die to self. I am not talking about literal crucifixion, of course, but I am talking about the literal laying down of our “life,” at least as we usually recognize it. Our only truly essential human task here, Jesus teaches, is to grow beyond the survival instincts of the animal brain and egoic operating system into the kenotic joy and generosity of full human personhood. His mission was to show us how to do this. [2]  

Richard Rohr and CAC teacher James Finley discuss why the Jonah story has been transformational for them:  

Richard: I’m just haunted by this story. It’s true on fifty-five levels. Running from God in spite of yourself, being thrown in the belly of the beast and discovering God. It’s all of us, it’s every person. Here again is the theme of coming to God by doing it wrong, not by doing it right. For years, I collected every image of Jonah in the belly of the whale that I could. It’s amazing how many there are. How about you, Jim?  

Jim: Something that strikes me about [the Jonah story] is at the very end. He’s this reluctant prophet, and he bears witness, and all of Nineveh follows his message. And he goes up on a mountain because he went through all this trouble being swallowed by a whale and so on, and he’s sitting there waiting for God to rain fire from heaven, and God doesn’t do it. A bush comes up and grows over Jonah to shelter him from the sun and a worm comes and kills the bush. And Jonah complains to God that the sun’s so hot that the bush died. God says, “Jonah, you’re angry because the worm ate the bush and yet you want me to kill all these people who are my children.” One translation of Jonah says, “Don’t you know me, Jonah, that I’m mercy within mercy within mercy?” I love that ending: God the all-merciful. [1] 

Dominican priest and poet Paul Murray considers how Jonah’s journey of transformation is one that all of us must undergo:  

Our own minds and hearts are more like Jonah’s than we care to admit. And that is why like Jonah we need, in the spiritual life, to be shocked and shaken out of certain fixed ways of thinking and feeling. We need to begin to recognize God in places where we would never, perhaps, have suspected [God’s] presence before, and not only in the big city or in the places of our enemies, but also in the many seemingly banal and bizarre circumstances of our lives.   But to learn this lesson, really to learn it, we need, like Jonah, to undergo the grace and mystery of bewilderment. Of course, we need many other graces as well—for example, the grace to sit still, the grace to meditate, and the grace and the energy to work for peace and to fight for justice. But, sometimes, it is only in the midst of the “tempest,” in the heart of a storm of circumstances which we can’t control, that we come finally to realize something of the wonderful mystery of God and realize also how far beyond anything we can imagine or hope for are [God’s] plans both for ourselves and for the entire world.

_________________________________________________

Sarah Young

Magnificent Jesus, You are the Light of the world! Because I am Your follower, I will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of Life. Although there is much darkness in this world, I always have access to You. So I am never in utter darkness. The trail before me often looks shadowy, especially as it disappears into the future. I would love for it to be floodlit so I could anticipate what’s ahead. But the truth is, You are enough! You are with me continually, and You also go before me—illuminating the way. All I need to do is trust You and follow the Light You provide. Even when the path before me is dimly lit, Your illumination is sufficient for me to find my way forward step by step. Someday I will be with You in heaven, where I will see Your Light in all its Glory! Darkness will be a thing of the past, and I’ll be able to see everything clearly. The Bible assures me there will be no more night. I will not need the light of a lamp or of the sun, for You will give me Light—beyond anything I can imagine! In Your brilliant Name, Amen

JOHN 8:12 ESV; Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

PROVERBS 4:18; The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.

REVELATION 22:5; There will be no more night in the city, and they will have no need for the light of a lamp or of the sun.

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 99). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

The Only Sign Jesus Offers

Jesus said, “No sign will be given except the sign of Jonah.” —Matthew 12:39 

Father Richard considers what Jesus meant when he promised “the sign of Jonah”: 

This strong one-liner of Jesus feels rather amazing and largely unheard. He even says it is an “evil age” that wants anything other than the simple sign of the prophet Jonah. He says it is the “only sign” that he will give.  

This is indeed unsatisfying. For it is not a sign at all, but more an anti-sign. It demands that we release ourselves into the belly of darkness before we can know what is essential. It insists that the spiritual journey is more like giving up control than taking control. It might even be saying that others will often throw us overboard, and that we get to the right shore by God’s grace more than right action on our part. It is clearly a very disturbing and unsatisfying sign.  

Faith is precisely no-thing. It is nothing we can prove in order to be right, or use to get anywhere else. If we want something to believe in (which is where we all must start), we had best begin as Christians with clear ground, identity, and boundaries. But that is not yet faith! That is merely securing the foundations for our own personal diving board. 

Faith is the leap into the water, now with the lived experience that there is One who can and will catch us—and lead us where we need to go. Religion, in some sense, is a necessary first half of life phenomenon. Faith is much more possible in the second half of life, not necessarily chronologically but always spiritually. To paraphrase Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), “Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward.” [1] Jonah knew what God was doing, and how God does it, and how right God is—only afteremerging from the belly of the whale. Until he has first endured the journey, the darkness, the spitting up on the right shore—all in spite of his best efforts to avoid these very things—Jonah has no message whatsoever to give. Jonah is indeed a symbol of transformation. Jesus had found the Jonah story inspiring, no doubt, because it described almost perfectly what was happening to him. [2] 

Much of my earlier work with men and spirituality was teaching them how to trust their time in the belly of the whale, how to stay there without needing to fix, to control, or even to fully understand it, and to wait until God spit them up on a new shore. It is called “liminal space,” and I believe all in-depth transformation takes place inside of liminal space. To hope too quickly is to hope for the wrong thing. The belly of the whale is the great teaching space, and thus it is no surprise that Jesus said this was the only sign he was going to give (Luke 11:30). [3] 

Fleeing the Call

At the CAC’s CONSPIRE conference in 2018, faculty member Barbara Holmes shared her own personal “Jonah story”: 

There is a crisis of disobedience when we choose to disobey God’s will for our lives. In this instance, I think of Jonah…. He thinks he’s right. He hates the Assyrians, and understandably so. After all, they were a marauding, land-grabbing nation, a real threat to Israel. He had national pride. He wanted to see them destroyed. And so, when he gets the call from God, he travels 2,500 miles to the southern area of Spain. He couldn’t get much further away. Why does he flee? He flees, he says at the end of chapter four, because he knows God is merciful. There is no worse situation than a merciful God when you want to see your enemies get what’s coming to them. Jonah wants to do things his way and ends up in the belly of a sea monster.   

Do you have a Jonah story? I do. From the age of ten through my twenties, I knew I had a call of God on my life. Through dreams, waking visions, and moments of surprising attunement with the Divine, I knew God was calling me. But here I am, a ten-year-old girl, with a call to something I don’t understand. I’d never seen a woman in ministry. For that matter, I’d never seen a woman leading in any spiritual capacity. So, what to do?  

Well, what I did was I went on with my life. I got married, had two children, and after a decade heard the call again even more strongly. This time I turned my head to where I thought God lived (up there) and I said, “Excuse me, sir, or ma’am”—I wanted to cover my bases—“I don’t know if you know about the divorce, but I have two children and I’ve got to feed them and ministers make no money. So, if you don’t mind, I’m going to law school.” [1] 

It took time, but Holmes eventually said “yes” to God’s call. She encourages listeners to remain open and faithful to God’s invitations to serve:  

As I was standing at graduation from law school, I heard a voice say to me, “This isn’t it.” And I kind of startled, and I said to my girlfriend who was standing in line with me to get our degrees, “I just heard a voice say, ‘This is not it.’” And she started laughing. She said, “Well, you sure have wasted a lot of time.”…

There was nothing to do but hear the whispering, continue my practices. And I now allow life to lead me to the precipice of the newness that was already seeded in my life…. 

Trust God, trust Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth. Make your intention clear, that yes, you will follow as called, without exception. Just make your intention known to God and wait for the Holy Spirit to lead you into the fulfillment of your vocation. [2] 

__________

Today’s Secondary Devo by Joni Eareckson Tada)

We Always Carry

. . . We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. — 2 CORINTHIANS 4:10 – 12

Today’s verse could sound a little morbid. We always carry around in our body Christ’s death? We are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake?! A hearty and happy yes! Why happy? Because then — and only then — can the vibrant, joyful life of our Savior be revealed through us. And his life is revealed in us for God’s glory, our eternal advantage, and others’ benefit. We carry around Jesus’ death when we daily die to sin in the same way he died for sin. It means not taking a casual greeting like “How are you doing?” as an excuse to list every minor and major casualty of your day. Not using your prayer group time as an excuse to gossip. Not painting a picture of your marriage that colors your spouse as the culprit and you the hero. Not living like a martyr and making sure everybody else knows it. These are ordinary, yet important ways of putting your flesh to death with its itchiness to rebel. Oh, to die to sin in the same selfless, patient manner as Jesus on his cross! Oh, if we could only see that refusing sin benefits others around us (just as Jesus was thinking of us on his cross). Then his life would be revealed in us — his profound peace, effervescent joy, and enduring hope. Jesus, I need the power of your resurrection to help me “die to sin” today. Help me to see how “carrying your death” will result in a livelier life for me . . . and deep encouragement for others around me.

Tada, Joni Eareckson. Pearls of Great Price (pp. 150-151). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Let nothing disturb you. / Let nothing upset you. / Everything changes. / God alone is unchanging. / With patience all things are possible. / Whoever has God lacks nothing. / God alone is enough. —Teresa of Ávila

In CAC’s Turning to the Mystics podcast, Father Richard shares what drew him to Teresa of Ávila:

I first opened her Book of My Life when I was in college, and it just seemed like gobbledygook. I was nineteen or twenty years old; I just had no real inner experience. I conveniently shelved her, and only came back in my early years here in New Mexico. Realizing I had much more to learn if I was going to present myself as a teacher of contemplation and action, I had to go to the best in the field, and she was there. And I found what I once thought was so abstruse was now striking home again and again. [1]

Richard describes the gifts of mystical experience, particularly those Teresa emphasizes:

Mystics always bring this message in some form: “Do not be afraid.”

They know that it is all okay and will be finally okay, too! They want to tell us so that we can stop fretting and fearing and enjoy divine union now. Enjoy is the operative word. Mystical experience allows us to enjoy our own lives and to stop creating enemies and thinking we need to be afraid of certain people; to stop fearing nations and races we feel we have to punish and kill.

Where can we expect to go in life if we follow this way of perfection? What are its fruits? When we are enjoying deep union, we won’t need to create divisions, mistrust, and separation.

True spiritual encounter changes our politics, our attitude toward money, our use of time, our relationships toward foreigners and the weak, our attitude toward war and nationalism. We are citizens of God’s Big Kingdom now (see Philippians 3:20). Be prepared to have a very different lifestyle afterward.

If you are not ready to change, don’t seek out God. Once we have one sincere moment of divine union, we will want to spend all our time on the one thing necessary, which is to grow deeper and deeper in love every chance that we get.

Talk to those who have had a near-death, or nearing-death, experience. They all agree: it’s all about love. It’s all about union.

Saint Teresa of Ávila and her Way of Perfection are time-tested, reliable guides to this life:

Of love, nonattachment, and humility.

Of letting go, entering luminous darkness, and being ambushed by the Lover of the Cosmos.

Of recognizing union on the other side of fading dualisms. [2]

Teresa herself reminds us:

Remember: if you want to make progress on the path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love. [3]

-Sarah Young Jesus Listens

Precious Jesus, You are the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in You will live, even though he dies. You spoke this powerful truth to Martha when her brother Lazarus had been dead for four days, and she believed You. Then You commanded Lazarus to come out of his tomb, and he did! I love pondering Your teaching that You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You are everything I could ever need—for this life and the next. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in You. Believing this truth simplifies my life and helps me stay focused on You. Please train me in the joyful discipline of treasuring You above all else. You are the answer to all my struggles, the Joy that pervades all time and circumstances. You make my hard times bearable and my good times even better. So I come to You just as I am, desiring to share more and more of my life with You. I rejoice as I journey with You—the Way who guides me step by step and the Resurrection who gives me eternal Life. In Your majestic Name, Amen

JOHN 11:25, 43–44; Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

JOHN 14:6 NKJV; . 6 Jesus said to him, “I amthe way,the truth, and the life.No one comes to the

COLOSSIANS 2:2–3; That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, 

MATTHEW 11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 80). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

In this heartfelt prayer from Teresa of Ávila, we witness her concern for the whole world, her desire to speak truth to power, and her willingness to risk everything in order to be of service. Here is CAC friend Mirabai Starr’s translation: 

Blessed be the soul the Lord brings to an understanding of the truth! If only world leaders could enter this exalted consciousness. It would be so much more worthwhile for them to strive for this state of prayer than for all the power in the world. What righteousness would prevail in a nation like this. What atrocities would be avoided.

Any man who reaches this stage has such unshakable love of God that any fear of risking his honor or his life falls away. This is an especially great blessing for someone who has the obligation to lead his community….

O Lord, even if you were to give me the authority to proclaim these truths publicly, no one would believe me…. But at least it would satisfy me to have a real voice. I would count my life as nothing if it meant that I could clearly communicate even one of these sacred teachings to the world….

I keep having these irresistible impulses to speak the truth to political leaders. But since I do not have access to these men, I turn to you, my Lord, and beg you to make all things right. You well know that I would gladly forfeit all the blessings you have given me and transfer them to these rulers…. If they could experience what I have experienced, I know that it would be impossible for them to allow the violations they have been condoning.

O my God! Please help world leaders understand the magnitude of their responsibilities….

I sincerely pray for our leaders, and I would like to be of some help to them. Such an urge makes a soul reckless. I would gladly risk my life to gain what I believe in….

Once a soul has attained this level of prayer, she does not merely desire to serve God; his Majesty [a name Teresa uses for God] gives her the strength to manifest the desire. The soul would not hesitate to try anything that might be of service to him. Any sacrifice for his sake feels like nothing, because she knows that anything other than pleasing him means nothing….

Here is my life. Here is my honor. Here is my will. I give them all to you. I am yours. Use me as you will….

The soul is his soul. He is in charge. He illuminates her. It seems that he is guarding her against offending him. He helps her to wake up in service of him….

As long as she receives God’s favors with humility and gratitude, always bearing in mind that the Beloved gives them and that she herself does almost nothing, she will retain her equanimity.

Zest for Life, Love for Creation 

Contemplative teacher Tessa Bielecki captures Teresa of Ávila’s love for God revealed through creation: 

Teresa teaches us how to live the human adventure with zest and enthusiasm. She was in love with every dimension of life: with people and places, music, laughter and celebration, with nature and its abundance.

We see her enthusiasm in the vibrant imagery she draws from her experience of the earth. She speaks of sun and wind and rain, clouds, crystal, and falling comets, tempests, thunderclaps and lightning. She calls God the Sun in the interior of the soul, casting brilliant light into every corner of our being. When she prayed, Teresa loved to look at fields and flowers, “reading” from the book of nature. She loved to live near water, with good soil and gardens.…

Teresa urges us to embrace nature in our prayer because nature awakens us, reminding us of the Creator. She can’t contain her praise and glorifies God as Lord of the world and Beauty exceeding all other beauties. “Who could make known the majesty with which You reveal Yourself!” she cries out in one of her spontaneous prayers. “O my God, God, God, author of all creation! And what is creation if You, Lord, should desire to create more? You are almighty; Your works are incomprehensible.”

When we have trouble praying, Teresa recommends that we turn to nature: “Go to some place where you can see the sky, and walk up and down a little.” Since God is infinite and everywhere, sometimes we rejoice as much in meditating on creation as in meditating on the Divine. Why limit ourselves to only one of creation’s mysteries when there are so many? Teresa mentions the mystery of water, the sparrowhawk, and the tiny ant. Any of these is enough for a whole period of prayer, immersing us in the wonder and wisdom of God. What would happen if we knew “the property of every created thing?”

Bielecki shows how Teresa drew upon nature to describe the soul’s journey with God: 

Since [Teresa] lived close to the earth, she said the spiritual life is like bees making honey, silkworms spinning their cocoons, fish swimming in a running stream. Depending on our stage of spiritual growth, we may be like mice, toads or snakes, flitting moths, butterflies, doves, wild horses or wounded deer. We may encounter God’s majesty as a mighty eagle or a roaring lion.

Teresa’s favorite nature image was water. She speaks lavishly of flowing springs, pools, wells, and fountains, rivers, waves, and the sea, urging us to irrigate our hearts with the waters of Life. When instead we clog our lives with triviality and endless distraction, she sees us bogged down in a swamp, struggling to get muddy water out of a puddle.

Teresa also loved fire imagery. If we build a fire in our living room or out in the wilds, we can reflect with her on the raging conflagration which enkindles us with the fire of divine love.

The Beloved Desires Action  

Teresa of Ávila was investigated several times during the Spanish Inquisition. At the insistence of her superiors, she wrote of her many visions and raptures to prove they came from God, and that she was firmly rooted in “orthodox” Catholicism. Translator and spiritual teacher Mirabai Starr writes:

Through her many writings, Teresa of Ávila openly shares her humanity with the world. There were times when she was paralyzed by fear of rejection and others when she was so courageous in the face of what she knew to be her sacred destiny that she risked being executed as a heretic. She made mistakes, as we all do. Some she apologized profusely for; others she refused to admit to until years later. Like us, she was petty or generous, irritable or unconditionally loving, attributing everything to her progress along the path of contemplative prayer. But she never ceased showing up for the spiritual work. [1] 

Teresa was a real person with real advice for real people of her time—and our own. Here are some examples from her masterpiece, The Interior Castle:

It’s tempting to think that if God would only grant you internal favors, you would be able to withstand external challenges. His Majesty [a name Teresa uses for God] knows what is best for us. He does not require our opinion on the matter and, in fact, has every right to point out that we don’t have any idea what we’re asking for. Remember: all you have to do as you begin to cultivate the practice of prayer is to prepare yourself with sincere effort and intent to bring your will into harmony with the will of God. [2]

Teresa was also an astute spiritual director who turned people away from an emphasis on perfection and piety and toward compassionate action:

Sometimes I observe people so diligently trying to orchestrate whatever state of prayer they’re in that they become peevish about it. They don’t dare to move or let their minds be stirred for fear of jeopardizing the slightest degree of devotion or delight. It makes me realize how little they understand of the path to union. They think the whole thing is about rapture.

But no, friends, no! What the Beloved wants from us is action. What he wants is that if one of your friends is sick, you take care of her. Don’t worry about interrupting your devotional practice. Have compassion. If she is in pain, you feel it, too. If necessary, you fast so that she can eat. This is not a matter of indulging an individual, you do it because you know it is your Beloved’s desire. This is true union with his will. What he wants is for you to be much happier hearing someone else praised than you would be to receive a compliment yourself. If you have humility, this is easy. It is a great thing to be glad when your friends’ virtues are celebrated. [3]

 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 

8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, ^hhaving put on the breastplate of ⁱfaith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, ²⁰ where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on …

‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ‘ 

Author and interspiritual teacher Megan Don introduces the Spanish mystic Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) as an exemplar of action and contemplation:

Teresa’s life provides us with an exceptional example of bringing the contemplative and active life together; it displays both a profound internal depth and an exceptionally productive outcome.…

At the age of twenty, after much deliberation, she chose to enter the Carmelite Monastery in Ávila. She did not make this choice because of a vocational “calling” but because Teresa understood it to be a favorable alternative to marriage….

Her fascination with the world continued while she lived in the monastery, since it was not an enclosed order, and a stream of visitors occupied much of her time…. Prayers were ordered and recited by rote, which left her soul dry and uninspired. She attempted to enter her own “prayer of quiet,” but finding the thoughts in her head far too noisy and disturbing, she gave up any attempt to develop a more meaningful way to pray. Her relationship with the Beloved [God] at this time was fairly superficial.

For twenty years she lived a divided life. On the one hand her ego desired worldly attachments, while on the other her spirit was calling her to a deeper communion with the divine. At the age of forty, Teresa finally surrendered completely to her Beloved. Her real life and work had begun. She returned to her prayer of quiet, allowing the Beloved to lead her, no longer relying on her own techniques. Meditation became essential to Teresa in establishing a clear and firm foundation with the divine, and as she walked further on her spiritual pathway, she came to understand that this external Beloved also “rests within.” It was to this place that she would constantly return to receive guidance, love, and a feeling of deep peace that she could not find elsewhere. [1]

From that place of peace and inner authority, Teresa worked to return the Carmelite order to its original emphasis on prayer, poverty, and simplicity, going on to found seventeen new convents and monasteries. Don continues:

Contrary to popular belief, the pinnacle of the mystical life is often lived in the world, even though it is not of the world. Having come into a full consciousness of the reality of existence, the mystic is now returned to society, displaying an extraordinary energy for the work required. This energy is none other than the divine force working in and through this willing worker of the Beloved, and it far surpasses anything we human beings can do alone. Teresa’s life is one such example of a person in and through whom the Beloved worked, and throughout her life she reiterated that the ultimate purpose of the sacred marriage [or union with God] is to give birth to good works in the world. [2]

Perfection Is Practicing Love 

In his foreword to The Way of Perfection, Teresa of Ávila’s book on the practice of prayer, Richard Rohr asks:

What is “the way of perfection”? (It isn’t about our perfection, by the way, but the recognition of God’s seamless perfection, woven into the fabric of our life and present all along.)

Saint Teresa writes:

Let the truth be in your hearts, as it will be if you practice meditation, and you will see clearly what love we are bound to have for our neighbors. [1]

Teresa teaches the way of perfection as practicing fraternal love, nonattachment to material things, and authentic humility. Some aspects of this wisdom might seem counterintuitive to readers today. Forgive me, but these virtues of nonattachment and humility don’t often make the vision boards of contemporary spiritual seekers!

Why is this?

What the mystics know, and what we’re having to relearn, is that it’s through a kind of luminous darkness of nonattachment and humility that we come to be seized by real love, God’s love.

I wonder if the only way that conversion, enlightenment, and transformation ever happen is by a kind of divine ambush. We have to be caught off guard. As long as we are in control, we are going to keep trying to steer the ship by our previous experience of being in charge. The only way we will let ourselves be ambushed is by trusting the “Ambusher,” and learning to trust that the darkness of intimacy will lead to depth, safety, freedom, and love.

God needs to catch us by surprise because our very limited, preexisting notions keep us and our understanding of God small. We are still trying to remain in control. We still want to “look good”!

God tries to bring us into a bigger world.

A world where, by definition, we are not in control.

A world where we no longer need to look good.

A terrible lust for certitude and rigid social order has characterized the last five hundred years of Western Christianity, and it has simply not served the soul well at all. Once we lost a spirituality of darkness as its own kind of light, there just wasn’t much room for growth in faith, hope, and love.

So God, as The Way of Perfection attests, has to come indirectly: catching us off guard and out of control, when we are empty instead of full of ourselves.

That is why the saints—including Teresa—talk about suffering so much. About nonattachment to the fleeting passions that put us on a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs.

The mystics are not masochistic, sadistic, negative, morbid, or oppositional. They have seen the pattern and, as Teresa says in one place, it is not that we are happy for the suffering. Who could be? Who would be?

No. We are happy for the new level of intimacy with God that the suffering has brought us to.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

¹⁴ The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. 

4Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. —Matthew 6:21

Author Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook connects pilgrimage to the universal longings of our hearts:

The first thing all human beings hear in the womb is their mother’s heartbeat. The metaphor of a journey to the center of the heart offers many insights into the nature of pilgrimage in general and the inward journey of the pilgrim in particular. One pilgrimage site that speaks to the journey to the center of the heart is found in the small village of Chimayó, located in the mountains of northern New Mexico. “If you are a stranger, if you are weary from the struggles of life … whether you have a broken heart, follow the long mountain road, find a home in Chimayó.” [1] …

Many of the pilgrims who travel there are not necessarily of the same religious tradition, and they are often not totally committed to the pilgrimage tradition or necessarily believe in miraculous healing. But they go on pilgrimage because they feel a longing in their hearts, and they are searching for something—perhaps divine love or inner peace, relief from a broken heart, or a more meaningful life—and they gain solace from belonging to a group of pilgrims along the way….

Pilgrimage, then, involves … the heart. The Talmud says, “God wants the heart.” It is the heart that holds the body together…. Augustine of Hippo [354–430] wrote that the heart is a metaphor for our deepest and truest selves, and he frequently uses the image as a way to explain his own journey to God: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” [2]

Kujawa-Holbrook writes of the interwoven journeys that pilgrimage takes us through:

The sacred art of pilgrimage involves both an inward and outward journey. … The pilgrim strives to hold both the inward and outward journey together, sometimes in tension, but always focused on the search for meaning, for the Divine…. What most distinguishes the sacred art of pilgrimage from a tourist trip or hiking expedition, as beneficial as these are, is the characteristic inward journey, a turning of one’s heart to the Divine, with the expectation of transformation on every level of being along the way. Benedict of Nursia [c. 480–547], the founder of Western monasticism and author of the Benedictine Rule, used to advise his monks and nuns to “listen with the ear of their heart.” [3] In other words, the pilgrim’s first yearning is in the heart, deeply and inwardly, sometimes for years before the outward journey begins.

____________________________________

Sarah Young Jesus Listens

My ever-present Lord, I’ve been looking ahead at uncertainties, letting them unnerve me. I see fear and discouragement waiting alongside my pathway into the future—ready to accompany me if I let them. Please keep reminding me that You go before me and will be with me. You hold me by my right hand. Because You live beyond time, You’re able to be with me where I am and simultaneously be on the path up ahead. Through eyes of faith, I can see You shining brightly—beckoning me on, encouraging me to fix my gaze on You. So I will cling tightly to Your hand as I walk past those dark presences of dread and discouragement. Help me keep looking toward Your radiant Presence that beams out unfailing Love and endless encouragement. My confidence comes from knowing You are continually with me and You are already in my future, preparing the way before me. If I listen carefully, I can hear You calling back to me from the trail up ahead—words of warning and wisdom, courage and hope: “Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you.” In Your powerful Name, Jesus, Amen

DEUTERONOMY 31:8; The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.

PSALM 73:23 NKJV; Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. 24 You will guide me with Your counsel, 

PSALM 119:76; May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant. 77 Let your compassion come to me 

ISAIAH 41:10 NASB Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will also help you,

Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 72). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Father Richard shares some “disciplines” or practices that he believes are essential for making a pilgrimage a Spirit-filled journey instead of merely a trip:   

Today, what I’d like to speak about are disciplines or what we call spiritual practices. If we want to prepare and open our spirits to receive everything we can and to perceive the fullness of the moment, I would like to at least suggest a few interior disciplines.

Primarily, a pilgrimage is an individual matter between the person and God. It’s not horizontal as much as vertical. The primary concern is that we make an interior journey and hopefully find a bigger God. Therefore, I want to encourage each of us to take time alone each day.

First of all, let us practice the discipline of silence. Secondly, let us take some solitude. Thirdly, we practice the discipline of speech. Our patterns of many years are that whenever there is a moment of silence, we fill it up by talking. Let’s see if God can teach us a way to say only what’s necessary and what’s important.

We live in front of the TV, or whatever it might be. Now on pilgrimage, we’re away from that. [DM Team: Today, our smart phones make this discipline more difficult and even more essential!] We don’t need to just fill the silence up with more sounds. There are things that don’t need to be talked about, things that are just time fillers. They’re just there to fill up our nervousness. How can we deepen the quality of our communication while we’re on this retreat and this pilgrimage?

If you keep a journal on pilgrimage, I encourage you to take some silent time and write about your experience. Don’t just journal about where we went and what we visited. Write about what’s happening inside of you. As regrets and mistakes come forward in our consciousness—and they’re inside all of us—just keep handing them over to God: “God, I’m being judgmental again. I’m being angry again. I’m being impatient again.” Then when you go to your journal, try as best you can to write down your interior experiences: “How am I feeling? What’s God saying to me in prayer? What am I hearing?” These are all disciplines to deepen the quality of our listening.

Finally, I ask all of us to pray for the freedom to be released from cynicism and judgment. We’re going to encounter people who do and say things differently. If we move into “sophistication,” we will lose the childlike spirit that Jesus talks about. A pilgrim must be like a child who can approach everything with an attitude of wonder and awe and faith. Let’s pray for wonder. Let’s pray for awe. Let’s pray for desire, or better “the desire to desire,” and ask God to take away our cynicism.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 

“As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. 

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.

5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.

For ecumenical leader and author Wes Granberg-Michaelson, pilgrimage invites passionate spirituality:

Pilgrims move in two directions at the same time—an outward direction toward a holy destination and an inward journey seeking an encounter with the sacred. Two of the best academic scholars of pilgrimages, Victor and Edith Turner, explain it in this one sentence: “Pilgrimage may be thought of as extroverted mysticism, just as mysticism is introverted pilgrimage.” [1] Pilgrimages, they suggest, were, and are, no walk in the park, or plain, or mountain. Embarking on such a journey, we become untethered not just from our physical normalcy. These uncertain, trusting steps also move us out of our spiritual familiarity. The pilgrim is invited not only to walk out of boxes of dogmatic beliefs, but also to walk away from practices of comfortable spirituality.

Consider historically the life of peasants or serfs in medieval Europe who were tied to specific places—a manor, and a particular piece of land. Religious life was likewise confined to a local parish, with its repeated, routine practices. As pilgrimage opportunities began to be possible for a wide range of people, their journeys liberated them toward places unknown, with spiritual intensity. Pilgrimage sites were places where miracles had occurred. The bones of saints were living; the apparition of Mary created a rarified space. Healings occurred, continuing the miraculous nature of these sites.

As journeys to Jerusalem became insurmountable or impossible, numerous pilgrimage sites sprang forth throughout Europe. Yet those embarking on pilgrimages faced clear and present dangers. They were walking into liminal space, with a familiar past of place and spirit left behind and a future promise of spiritual power, wedded to tangible, material things, in the distance.

In their own context, this was a reckless spirituality, a form of extroverted mysticism…. For most, this was a once-in-a-lifetime embodied quest of spiritual abandonment. In the words of the Turners, “pilgrimage was the great liminal experience of the religious life.” [2]

For today’s pilgrim it can be the same. A pilgrimage is a rejection of modernity’s expectations and assumptions about time, place, perception, satisfaction, speed, predictability, and the material world. As in ancient times, motives for contemporary pilgrimages are mixed. Lines between pilgrimage and tourism become blurred for some while breaks in employment prompt others to a pilgrimage more than a thirst for embodied forms of holiness. Yet pathways that move simultaneously in inward and outward directions prove irresistible to throngs roaming pilgrimage paths today.

The embodied movement of pilgrimage is an opportunity to step outside our habitual rhythms with God: 

The Spirit yearns to break out and to break open our old practices, our protective shells of comfortable spirituality, connecting our inner selves more deeply to God’s love and to God’s world. Your soul no longer stays still. It’s moving with God in the world, and moving toward God, revealed in signs or shrines or saints or surroundings. The pilgrim’s walking body holds incarnate this inner journey of the soul.