Seeking God. Esther de Waal

his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be totally changed into fire?

       (Desert Fathers: LXXII)

      Christ leads me through no darker rooms

      Than he went through before;

      He that unto God’s kingdom comes,

      Must enter by this door.

       (Richard Baxter)

      Blessed are the eyes that see the Divine Spirit through the letter’s veil.

       (Claudius of Turin)

      It is not necessary that we should discover new ideas in our meditation. It is sufficient if the word as we read and understand it penetrates and dwells within us. As Mary pondered in her heart the tidings that were told by the shepherds, as what we have casually heard follows us for a long time, sticks in our mind, occupies, disturbs or delights us, without our ability to do anything about it, so in meditation God’s word seeks to enter in and remain with us. It strives to stir us to work and to operate in us so that we shall not get away from it the whole day long. Then it will do its work in us without our being aware of it.

       (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

      Whenever you read the Gospel Christ Himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking with him.

       (St Tikhon of Zadonsk)

      Blessed Lord,

      who has caused all holy Scriptures

      to be written for our learning;

      grant that we may in such wise hear them,

      read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them;

      that, by patience, and comfort

      of thy holy Word,

      we may embrace, and ever hold fast

      the blessed hope of everlasting life,

      which thou has given us in our Saviour

      Jesus Christ.

       Notes

      The basis of this chapter, as of the book, is the Rule of St Benedict itself. The translation through which I first got to know and love the Rule is that of Dom Basil Bolton, O.S.B. The fact that it came to me through Dom Bernard Orchard, O.S.B., of Ealing Abbey, titular Prior of Canterbury, is in itself a symbol of the way in which the Rule is common ground between the two communions. In writing this book, however, I have used the most recent definitive translation, that edited by Timothy Fry, O.S.B., and published by the Liturgical Press, Collegeville, in 1982. This is an annotated text in Latin and English and enables me to give precise reference to individual phrases. The index has been invaluable, as has the Appendix giving longer expositions of monastic topics. This chapter in particular owes much to the section on the role and interpretation of Scripture, pp. 467 – 77. Using this text I have also written a commentary on the Rule: A Life-Giving Way, Geoffrey Chapman, 1995.

      The Cardinal Hume quotation on page 15 comes from an address given in 1980 at Ealing Abbey and later published in a collection In Praise of Benedict, AD. 480 – 1980, Hodder & Stoughton, 1981, p. 34. The phrase of Thomas Merton which I use on page 15 I came across in Simplicity and Ordinariness, Studies in Medieval Cistercian History, IV, ed. John R. Sommerfeldt, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1980, p. 3.

      I am glad right at the start to be able to acknowledge my debt to Dom David Knowles, whose lectures at Cambridge first awakened in me a feeling for the Middle Ages. On page 16 I have used one of his earliest and shortest but none the less profoundly wise studies, The Benedictines, Sheed and Ward, 1929. The quotation comes on page 17. Now long out of print in England, a slightly modified edition introduced by Marion R. Bowman was re-issued in 1962 by the Abbey Press, Saint Leo, Florida.

      The section on pages 16 – 17 owes much to Emmanuel van Severus ‘Theological Elements of the Benedictine Rule’, Monastic Studies, Advent 1975, pp. 45 – 6.

      On page 18 I was drawing on chapter 3 ‘The Word of God’, from Guy-Marie Oury, O.S.B., St Benedict, Blessed by God, translated by John A. Otto and published by the Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1980.

      The quotations from the psalms used in the Thoughts and Prayers are taken from the translation of the Alternative Service Book. A modern translation helps us to see how the psalms speak afresh to every generation.

      This translation of the Rule, as also that which I use for the ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ at the end of chapter IX, is by Ambrose Wathen, in an article ‘Benedict of Nursia, Patron of Europe 480 – 1980’, Cistercian Studies, 1980, XV, p. 106. All the sayings of the Desert Fathers that I shall be using in these ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ come from the translation by Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, Sayings of the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century, Sheldon Press, 1961.

      The collect is for Advent II.

      III

      LISTENING

       ‘How great is the freedom to which you are called’