Today I have been in poustinia at Madonna House, Robin Hoods Bay. Here is a seasonal word from the foundress:
Living Stream of Grace: The Holy Spirit
by Catherine Doherty
The Spirit of God unites us. He is the living stream of grace which circulates through the Sacraments and brings new life everywhere. The Holy Spirit is the creative breath by which the world is impelled toward perfection.
For the Spirit, the divine Consoler, has come to us as He came to the apostles and gives us inward light. He was sent to help them to grasp the mysteries revealed by Jesus. He does the same for us. Thanks to the Holy Spirit we are now dwelling in God's light that purifies us from darkness. He gives us knowledge and taste for the things of God. We receive a light that discloses a new world to us.
But the Holy Spirit has come to cast fire on earth! Our hearts are transformed if we receive Him with an open heart. He infuses a burning love and charity in we who receive him. For Christ desired that the lives of Christians would set people's hearts on fire. That is why the Spirit came at Pentecost in the shape of tongues of fire.
The first preaching of the apostles was but the beginning of a missionary work which was to know no limit and no halt until the end of time. People of all races, of every country and of every generation are drawn into it. And so are we.
"I have come so that they may have life more abundantly," Christ said. The love of God is poured out all over the earth. His Spirit is diffused everywhere. The heavens are open. The desert of our earth is once more made fruitful by that water which is the source of all life.
To enter into life we must be born again of water and the Holy Spirit in Baptism. The wellsprings of the Holy Spirit reach everywhere. We come forth from the womb of the water in baptism as adopted children of God, reborn to divine life.
Pentecost is a feast of Confirmation, in which God completes his work by giving strength to the world He has renewed. For we have life and we have it more abundantly.
The Lord breathed his Spirit over the whole earth. Pentecost is the time of fullness, the fiftieth day. Pentecost, the day which comes after seven-times-seven days since Easter, brings us the message that God's work is now completed. We have his Body, his Spirit, his love, his life!
Truly God has given himself to us in fullness. Together we form the Church, the new creation, ultimate and free. We are destined to be called to heaven. Let us rejoice in this feast and incarnate its fruits into our lives.
The Spirit who on Pentecost creates the Church is the Spirit who at the beginning of time created the world. If we have recourse to Him constantly, He will continue his work in us and we will become like tongues of fire that, falling on the earth, will renew it.
The action of the Holy Spirit in each one of us needs attentiveness to be perceived, yet without him we can do nothing. The "New Law" of Love, the words of Christ, have not been written on tablets of stone but engraved on our hearts. It is the Holy Spirit who inwardly, interiorly makes us understand the words of the Gospel and reveals to us all the demands of charity.
May the Lord clean our hearts in the light of the Holy Spirit, by the fire of Love! It burns away all that is selfish, all that stands in the way of our loving God and each other. Let us not be afraid to allow the fire of the Holy Spirit to enter our hearts and burn away their dross!
Adapted from Season of Mercy: Lent and Easter by Catherine Doherty
Showing posts with label poustinia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poustinia. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The Man who loved islands
This short story was unknown to me until I was introduced to it at breakfast by a Dulverton visitor. It fits in well with my blog thoughts for today.
The Man who Loved Islands
A short story published in 1929 by the British author D.H. Lawrence (who has garnered most of his reputation from the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover). This story's nameless protagonist attempts to disprove the axiom about human nature that "no man is an island"; he is rich enough to buy islands for himself, and he buys and successively lives on three of them, going through progressive stages of isolation as he does so.
When he moves onto his first island, he gets lonely at night; his imagination carries him away, and he has visions of the island's Celtic history (here Lawrence makes references to the Druids as portrayed in the records of Julius Caesar). So, the man decides to turn his island into a community. He gets some servants to work in his house, a few other people to live in cottages, and dreams of turning the island into a self-supporting farm. But the dream is in vain; not only can the island not turn a profit, the man is far from breaking even on the venture. So, he sells his island to a hotel: "There, take that, island which didn't know when it was well off. Now be a honeymoon-and-golf island!" And he moves to the second island.
On the second island, he is accompanied only by two of the families that he had gotten to live with him on the first island: a carpenter and his wife, and a widow with her adult daughter. On this island, the man feels at home, and spends his days typing up a book about flower classifications, until he gets involved in a love affair with the widow's daughter. The problem, according to Lawrence, is that neither of them really want the affair; the man feels the pressure of the woman's will, and the woman forces her will upon the man for no clearly identifiable reason (she herself is at a loss to explain her behavior). Eventually, the woman conceives, and she and the man marry, but the man refuses to spend the rest of his life in misery. He buys and moves to the third island, leaving his wife with ample means to support herself.
On the third island, the man is alone. Initially, he has a cat, and some sheep that were on the island when he got there, but eventually the cat disappears and he hires some people to herd the sheep off the island because their bleats begin to annoy him. He wants to dwell in absolute silence, except for the sounds of the sea, and this is what he gets. He forgets the sound of his own voice; eventually, printed words offend him, and he destroys anything on the island that might be construed as text.
He lives in a stupor of solitude, and all this might be well and good, until winter comes. Suddenly, the man finds that the island he was so comfortable with is a foreign landscape covered in alien snow. At first, he tries clearing paths, but eventually he gives up hope of ever reclaiming his space. The story ends forebodingly: "He looked stupidly over the whiteness of the foreign island, over the waste of the lifeless sea. He pretended to imagine he saw the wink of a sail. Because he knew too well there would never again be a sail on that stark sea. As he looked, the sky mysteriously darkened and chilled. From far off came the mutter of the unsatisfied thunder, and he knew it was the signal of the snow rolling over the sea. He turned, and felt its breath on him."
Lawrence's message is clear: without social contact, a person loses his/her humanity and identity; isolation should not be absolute. No one who is familiar with his other works should be surprised at this message.
The BBC Castaways
On their remote island off the coast of New Zealand the 14 castaways continue their adventure in survival and community formation. However each week so far they have voted a fellow castaway to be banished for a few days isolation on a minimalist beach on a neighbouring island to reflect on why they were chosen. Even in this situation the BBC has given a companion for the greater part of their stay.
St Cuthbert
These island thoughts started with the awareness that today is the feast day of St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne who started out as a shepherd boy in the Scottish lowlands around the year 640. His lonely work gave him prayer opportunity leading to a vision of a saint being transported to heaven which led him to become a monk at Melrose. When he became abbot, and later bishop, of Lindisfarne he balance his life between travelling as a preacher and teacher and living as a hermit on Farne Island. As his death drew near he wished to be completely alone with God though just a few of his monks returned to be with him at the end.
Poustinia
This is a way of encountering God in silence, solitude and prayer deriving from the Orthodox tradition and introduced to Western Christianity by Catherine Doherty. I try to keep a day a month in a poustinia at Madonna House, Robin Hoods Bay along the coast from here.
"Solitude requires only a small place. It can be a room in a large convent or monastery. It can be a place in the attic or the basement of a family home. It may be part of a room, separated by curtains. That would be a sufficient temporary solitude for simple recollection and greater peace....Solitude, unless one is called to a lifetime of it by God, must always be a temporary thing, lest it cease to be solitude and become an escape......It is good to have periodic solitude. It is good to gather oneself up, to be awake with the Lord in Gethsemane, to watch not only one hour with him but perhaps more; to be with him along the way of his Incarnation and on to Golgotha, to the Resurrection, on to the bosom of the Father and the Spirit."
Solitude
"It is God who makes solitude holy. 'I will lead you into solitude and there I shall speak to your heart' (Hos. 2.16). ...Little solitudes are often right behind a door which we can open, or in a little corner where we can stop to look at a tree that somehow survived the snow and dust of a city street. There is the solitude of a car in which we return from work, riding bumper to bumper on a crowded highway... Think of the solitude afforded by such humble tasks as housecleaning, ironing, and sewing....But our hearts, minds, and souls must be attuned, desirous, aware of these moments of solitude that God gives us"
The Man who Loved Islands
A short story published in 1929 by the British author D.H. Lawrence (who has garnered most of his reputation from the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover). This story's nameless protagonist attempts to disprove the axiom about human nature that "no man is an island"; he is rich enough to buy islands for himself, and he buys and successively lives on three of them, going through progressive stages of isolation as he does so.
When he moves onto his first island, he gets lonely at night; his imagination carries him away, and he has visions of the island's Celtic history (here Lawrence makes references to the Druids as portrayed in the records of Julius Caesar). So, the man decides to turn his island into a community. He gets some servants to work in his house, a few other people to live in cottages, and dreams of turning the island into a self-supporting farm. But the dream is in vain; not only can the island not turn a profit, the man is far from breaking even on the venture. So, he sells his island to a hotel: "There, take that, island which didn't know when it was well off. Now be a honeymoon-and-golf island!" And he moves to the second island.
On the second island, he is accompanied only by two of the families that he had gotten to live with him on the first island: a carpenter and his wife, and a widow with her adult daughter. On this island, the man feels at home, and spends his days typing up a book about flower classifications, until he gets involved in a love affair with the widow's daughter. The problem, according to Lawrence, is that neither of them really want the affair; the man feels the pressure of the woman's will, and the woman forces her will upon the man for no clearly identifiable reason (she herself is at a loss to explain her behavior). Eventually, the woman conceives, and she and the man marry, but the man refuses to spend the rest of his life in misery. He buys and moves to the third island, leaving his wife with ample means to support herself.
On the third island, the man is alone. Initially, he has a cat, and some sheep that were on the island when he got there, but eventually the cat disappears and he hires some people to herd the sheep off the island because their bleats begin to annoy him. He wants to dwell in absolute silence, except for the sounds of the sea, and this is what he gets. He forgets the sound of his own voice; eventually, printed words offend him, and he destroys anything on the island that might be construed as text.
He lives in a stupor of solitude, and all this might be well and good, until winter comes. Suddenly, the man finds that the island he was so comfortable with is a foreign landscape covered in alien snow. At first, he tries clearing paths, but eventually he gives up hope of ever reclaiming his space. The story ends forebodingly: "He looked stupidly over the whiteness of the foreign island, over the waste of the lifeless sea. He pretended to imagine he saw the wink of a sail. Because he knew too well there would never again be a sail on that stark sea. As he looked, the sky mysteriously darkened and chilled. From far off came the mutter of the unsatisfied thunder, and he knew it was the signal of the snow rolling over the sea. He turned, and felt its breath on him."
Lawrence's message is clear: without social contact, a person loses his/her humanity and identity; isolation should not be absolute. No one who is familiar with his other works should be surprised at this message.
The BBC Castaways
On their remote island off the coast of New Zealand the 14 castaways continue their adventure in survival and community formation. However each week so far they have voted a fellow castaway to be banished for a few days isolation on a minimalist beach on a neighbouring island to reflect on why they were chosen. Even in this situation the BBC has given a companion for the greater part of their stay.
St Cuthbert
These island thoughts started with the awareness that today is the feast day of St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne who started out as a shepherd boy in the Scottish lowlands around the year 640. His lonely work gave him prayer opportunity leading to a vision of a saint being transported to heaven which led him to become a monk at Melrose. When he became abbot, and later bishop, of Lindisfarne he balance his life between travelling as a preacher and teacher and living as a hermit on Farne Island. As his death drew near he wished to be completely alone with God though just a few of his monks returned to be with him at the end.
Poustinia
This is a way of encountering God in silence, solitude and prayer deriving from the Orthodox tradition and introduced to Western Christianity by Catherine Doherty. I try to keep a day a month in a poustinia at Madonna House, Robin Hoods Bay along the coast from here.
"Solitude requires only a small place. It can be a room in a large convent or monastery. It can be a place in the attic or the basement of a family home. It may be part of a room, separated by curtains. That would be a sufficient temporary solitude for simple recollection and greater peace....Solitude, unless one is called to a lifetime of it by God, must always be a temporary thing, lest it cease to be solitude and become an escape......It is good to have periodic solitude. It is good to gather oneself up, to be awake with the Lord in Gethsemane, to watch not only one hour with him but perhaps more; to be with him along the way of his Incarnation and on to Golgotha, to the Resurrection, on to the bosom of the Father and the Spirit."
Solitude
"It is God who makes solitude holy. 'I will lead you into solitude and there I shall speak to your heart' (Hos. 2.16). ...Little solitudes are often right behind a door which we can open, or in a little corner where we can stop to look at a tree that somehow survived the snow and dust of a city street. There is the solitude of a car in which we return from work, riding bumper to bumper on a crowded highway... Think of the solitude afforded by such humble tasks as housecleaning, ironing, and sewing....But our hearts, minds, and souls must be attuned, desirous, aware of these moments of solitude that God gives us"
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
The House of Our Lady
Poustinia about which I wrote yesterday is linked in the West with the Madonna House Community.
Someone once asked Catherine, “What is Madonna House?” She answered:
What is Madonna House? Madonna House is a very simple thing. It is an open door. It is a cup of tea or coffee, good and hot. It is an invitation to work for the common good.
Madonna House is a house of hospitality. It is a place where people are received, not on their education, not on how wonderful they are as painters, or whatever they have to do; they are received simply as people. They are loved.
Now today where do we find Pope Benedict XVI?
Benedict XVI will travel to Smyrna, the country's third-largest city, known as "The Pearl of the Aegean," from where he will go to Ephesus, the city where the Apostle Paul lived and was captive, and where, according to tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist also lived. In Ephesus, Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass at the Meryem Ana Evi (House of Mary) Shrine and deliver a homily. It was in this city that a Council in the year 431 proclaimed the Virgin Mary "Theotokos," of Mother of God.
Independent Catholic News
LONDON - 26 March 2001
Our Lady's house to open in Norfolk
A replica of Our Lady's house in Turkey, is to be opened in Norfolk next Sunday (1 April).
Bishop Peter Smith of East Anglia will bless the house, and representatives of the Turkish government are expected to attend.
Measuring just twelve feet by fifteen feet, the building at Downham Market is an exact copy of the original in Ephesus - said to be the house where Our Lady spent her last days with St John, before she was assumed into heaven. The building contains one stone from the house in Ephesus.
Local resident Eric St John-Foti is behind the project. He said: "My wife and I visited the house at Ephesus a number of times and were impressed by the feeling of tranquillity there."
Mr St John-Foti said he hoped the house becomes an inter-faith meeting place. He said: "The house in Ephesus attracts Moslem and Christian visitors alike. We want this new shrine to be dedicated to peace."
Someone once asked Catherine, “What is Madonna House?” She answered:
What is Madonna House? Madonna House is a very simple thing. It is an open door. It is a cup of tea or coffee, good and hot. It is an invitation to work for the common good.
Madonna House is a house of hospitality. It is a place where people are received, not on their education, not on how wonderful they are as painters, or whatever they have to do; they are received simply as people. They are loved.
Now today where do we find Pope Benedict XVI?
Benedict XVI will travel to Smyrna, the country's third-largest city, known as "The Pearl of the Aegean," from where he will go to Ephesus, the city where the Apostle Paul lived and was captive, and where, according to tradition, the Blessed Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist also lived. In Ephesus, Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass at the Meryem Ana Evi (House of Mary) Shrine and deliver a homily. It was in this city that a Council in the year 431 proclaimed the Virgin Mary "Theotokos," of Mother of God.
Independent Catholic News
LONDON - 26 March 2001
Our Lady's house to open in Norfolk
A replica of Our Lady's house in Turkey, is to be opened in Norfolk next Sunday (1 April).
Bishop Peter Smith of East Anglia will bless the house, and representatives of the Turkish government are expected to attend.
Measuring just twelve feet by fifteen feet, the building at Downham Market is an exact copy of the original in Ephesus - said to be the house where Our Lady spent her last days with St John, before she was assumed into heaven. The building contains one stone from the house in Ephesus.
Local resident Eric St John-Foti is behind the project. He said: "My wife and I visited the house at Ephesus a number of times and were impressed by the feeling of tranquillity there."
Mr St John-Foti said he hoped the house becomes an inter-faith meeting place. He said: "The house in Ephesus attracts Moslem and Christian visitors alike. We want this new shrine to be dedicated to peace."
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Poustinia
Four times a year I spend a day away in Poustinia as guest in the home of a local religious community.
What is Poustinia?
Catherine Doherty writes about it in her book of the same name(first edition 1975, new revised third edition 2000). She arrived in Canada as a Russian refugess over half a century ago and has used her heritage as a Russian Christian as a matrix for responding to the needs of Christian life and work in the western world. Her own personal pilgrimage has led her to be "poor with the poor in Christ" in the slums of Toronto and in Harlem; and, in 1947, to the establishing of a spiritual centre in Ontario, the Madonna House Apostolate. Poustinia is the keynote of this apsotolate. It is a Russian word meaning "desert". In her book she writes in a chapter with the title "Approaching Poustinia" that "You should approach poustinia, in great peace, looking forward to your rendezvous with the Lord. If I were to draw up a list for you as a kind of road map for your first trip to the poustinia, it would look something like this:
1. The poustinia is a place where you are going to meet Christ in joyful solitude.
2. There is nothing to be afraid of, for Christ is perfect love, and perfect love casts out all fears.
3. The poustinia is a prayer house which you enter to be alone with God.
4. You don't take any books with you because the only book that should be read in the poustinia is the bible; it is there waiting for you.
5. The poustinia is not only a place of rendezvous with Christ and a time of solitude and silence; it is also a time for penance. For when you lift your heart to the Lord in prayer you should, in a manner of speaking, lift both spiritual arms, or penance and prayer, as Moses did on the mountain.
6. When you go to the poustinia we give you a loaf of bread each day you are staying. Also a thermos of hot water to make tea.
7. Above all, be at peace, because you enter with Christ into his solitude and peace."
I commend the concept to you. If drawn then seek and go.
What is Poustinia?
Catherine Doherty writes about it in her book of the same name(first edition 1975, new revised third edition 2000). She arrived in Canada as a Russian refugess over half a century ago and has used her heritage as a Russian Christian as a matrix for responding to the needs of Christian life and work in the western world. Her own personal pilgrimage has led her to be "poor with the poor in Christ" in the slums of Toronto and in Harlem; and, in 1947, to the establishing of a spiritual centre in Ontario, the Madonna House Apostolate. Poustinia is the keynote of this apsotolate. It is a Russian word meaning "desert". In her book she writes in a chapter with the title "Approaching Poustinia" that "You should approach poustinia, in great peace, looking forward to your rendezvous with the Lord. If I were to draw up a list for you as a kind of road map for your first trip to the poustinia, it would look something like this:
1. The poustinia is a place where you are going to meet Christ in joyful solitude.
2. There is nothing to be afraid of, for Christ is perfect love, and perfect love casts out all fears.
3. The poustinia is a prayer house which you enter to be alone with God.
4. You don't take any books with you because the only book that should be read in the poustinia is the bible; it is there waiting for you.
5. The poustinia is not only a place of rendezvous with Christ and a time of solitude and silence; it is also a time for penance. For when you lift your heart to the Lord in prayer you should, in a manner of speaking, lift both spiritual arms, or penance and prayer, as Moses did on the mountain.
6. When you go to the poustinia we give you a loaf of bread each day you are staying. Also a thermos of hot water to make tea.
7. Above all, be at peace, because you enter with Christ into his solitude and peace."
I commend the concept to you. If drawn then seek and go.
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