Spiritual Life Institute

I think that very often, parishes will rush through masses and not take deliberate time to recognize who they are and where they are, nor take the time to contemplate God and God's work in us. The shortest Sunday mass I've ever been to was 35 minutes! (But that is maybe a mass I will describe in some future post.) I am used to that length in a daily mass, but not in a Sunday mass, which has singing and is supposed to be a gathering that recalls that Sunday is a joyful resurrection day and we are invited to leave our work behind for an hour or a day and celebrate as much as we can! If we're singing and doing ALL the responses and prayers, if we're pulling out all the stops for this joyful Sunday mass, it seems impossible that it could be over in little more than half an hour. But it was!

Contrast that to mass at a monastery. The Spiritual Life Institute holds a special place in my heart for several reasons. It is where I attended my first-ever mass and began a long, slow journey toward Christ present in the Eucharist. This is a monastery in the Carmelite tradition, meaning that the monks (both men and women) live in hermitages. Each week, they have a desert day (complete day of solitude but not necessarily with work) plus another couple days a week of solitude combined with work. What is their work, exactly? It is to be contemplative, witnesses to a world that does not know how to be contemplative well. I have learned from these monks that time, patience, and silence are far more important than busy-ness and efficiency. But if you're asking about what their WORK is, as in what do they do all day - well, they are retreat masters, and they lead parish missions, and they write, and they take care of people. The Carmelite charism is one of both contemplation and apostolic witness, so they aim for several months out of the year to be at the monastery, but then they will be "out in the world" - teaching at a local college, for example, or working with children.

Their joyful contemplation spills into their mass celebrations and their common prayer in the liturgy of the hours. Mass and the daily office both involve large sections of silence, and also very exuberant singing (sometimes of songs composed by some of the monks themselves), and a very reverent and focused Liturgy of the Eucharist. The pace, the tone, the way the priests address themselves to God and not to us (the people assembled) makes this liturgy very prayerful and focused. It makes me want to pray more and more, to take delight in God and God's world!

In fact, guests who stay at the monastery are invited to do just that. Sabbath at the monastery is a day for "praying and playing", so when we've prayed our hearts out in mass, we continue the celebration with a long, lavish brunch or a hike or picnic or other way to celebrate.

My experiences there (for I went on retreat there more times than I can count - and I wish I could go again!) have led me to practice the Sabbath in my own home now. Sunday is for praying and playing, even if the mass is short and not quite to my liking. Any human failings on any of our parts are pushed aside for a bit in favor of contemplating God and enjoying God's company with each other, the Body of Christ. So we too enjoy lavish brunches and devise all kinds of fun together. Sometimes we go skating, sometimes we go to the art museum, sometimes we look for butterflies, sometimes we just rest. But Sunday is reserved for that kind of enjoyment.

I'm grateful for monasteries that open their lives and hearts to Christians and help us seek God in better ways.