the sounds of silence

On a recent work trip to southern California, I was blessed with the opportunity to attend a women’s Silent Retreat at the Sacred Heart Retreat House in Alhambra, a beautiful neighborhood in the western San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles.

Not only was the time in silence a powerful gift to my weary spirit, but it also allowed me the opportunity to join in prayer with the generous community of women who run Sacred Heart Retreat House—the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles.

If you are not familiar with them, I encourage you to check out the website and their ministries: http://www.carmelitesistersocd.com/

Words are not enough to describe the Eucharistic presence of joining in silent worship with women who have vowed to live a life of prayer and service.

And no adjectives adequately describe the depth and breadth of what our generous God will do to love me… when I finally become still and silent in His presence.

I know I will be writing more about this experience. 

For now, a few images to give you a taste…

even the doors honored the silence!

“It is hardly surprising that different religious traditions consider solitude and silence as privileged states which help people to rediscover themselves and that Truth which gives meaning to all things…

In speaking of God's grandeur, our language will always prove inadequate and must make space for silent contemplation. Out of such contemplation springs forth, with all its inner power, the urgent sense of mission, the compelling obligation “to communicate that which we have seen and heard” so that all may be in communion with God. Silent contemplation immerses us in the source of that Love who directs us towards our neighbors so that we may feel their suffering and offer them the light of Christ, his message of life and his saving gift of the fullness of love.”

~Pope Benedict XVI,

for World Communication Day

2012

I look morning to night

view from my office, San Alfonso Retreat House,
September 2014

“I look; morning to night I am never done with looking. 

                        Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around

as though with your arms open. And thinking: maybe something will come, some            shining coil of wind,            or a few leaves from any old tree—                        they are all in this too.”

 ~Mary Oliver, 

“Where Does the Temple Begin,Where Does it End?” 

in WHY I WAKE EARLY 

I had a lovely week of quiet, contemplation and prayer on my recent private retreat. I read poetry. I read Scripture. And I dove quite naturally into the short but powerful gem of a book, "Re-Entry Into Faith" by Catherine Doherty. I packed my journal, but did a lot less writing than I thought I might do. 

I was doubly blessed by this particular retreat, thanks to the beauty and wonderful hospitality of San Alfonso Retreat House and its people—and by the fact that the retreat center is located right on the beach!

I will no doubt reference this experience again in future blogs. But for now, I’d like to share with you a visual story of this marvelous and renewing week.

my bedroom, and the view from my window!

From sunrise over the water to sunset over San Alfonso Retreat Center, the lovely grounds encouraged my spirit to be quiet... and to remember how to listen!

I even had my patron, Our Lady of Lourdes, near me... 

The evangelizing spirit of St. Alphonsus Liguori and the Redemptorist's devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help (her image was everywhere!) became an unexpected gift. My grandmother Josefa had a special devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, so every time I walked by her, I was reminded of the communion of saints (like my grandmother!) walking with and praying for me every day.

Did you know St. Alphonsus Liguori is patron of people suffering arthritis?

I was really taken by this beautiful image of Mary and Jesus by local artist B. Hanlon, with Jesus pointing toward the ocean.

I knew that combining time away at a retreat center with my love for the ocean would be a life-giving recipe for my tired spirit... but as is often true of God's Providence, I could not have anticipated the generous and abundant graces that were poured on me daily.  

And it's not just because I ate three delicious hot meals every day that I did not have to prepare, or clean! Although I confess, I did love getting spoiled in that way.

I walked the beach to my heart's content... for hours at a time, and I sat and stared at the water. Watching the waves come and go is a very contemplative prayer for me.

what's going through my brain... 3 semi-related topics

3 things that you may or may not find interesting...

Thing 1—I’ve arranged to be on retreat this coming week, so please keep me in your prayers?—and I promise that I will remember you! 

I will be keeping silence, and will not be writing blog posts until next weekend. 

“Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all of life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest, God does not bless our work. If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will silently withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty.”                                          ~Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

Thing 2—did you know that every year thousands of containers spill out from cargo ships traveling across the ocean? You could argue that it happens so often that residents of Kodiak, Alaska, have grown used to the weird sightings of items that make their way to their shores.

But a couple of years ago one was odd enough to make the newspaper... dozens of sports-themed fly swatters washed up on the beaches—representing both professional and collegiate teams. At first the Alaskans theorized the swatters were debris from the previous year’s tsunami, but it was later confirmed that they were, indeed, from another run of the mill cargo ship that had lost several commercial containers.

As much as I love to walk the beach, I’ve never given much thought to the bizarre things that wash up on shore.  But in case you're interested, here’s a list of other strange beach sightings.

And finally, thing 3—by request of our Archbishop—and in response to the black mass taking place in Oklahoma City next weekend, our entire Archdiocese has been praying daily (publicly and privately) the prayer of St. Michael.

All the Catholics in Oklahoma will continue to do this together until the feast of the archangels, September 29.  Would you consider joining us? If you've never heard it, here are the words to this powerful prayer:

St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Change #1, keep holy the Sabbath day

colleen-shay

“An angel comes to Mary, Elizabeth feels a child quicken within her, Joseph has a dream, and the Wise Ones follow a star. 

We who worship at the altar of the linear and the rational easily dismiss these gentle beats of eternity and bombard the ancient stories with questions and analyses and doubts and thoughts.  We empty the stories of their mystery.  Caught in a desire to understand, we forget that you are known in ways beyond thinking.  You are heard as much in silence as in speech.  You are present in dreams and visions. 

Draw us to quiet our hyperactive minds and rest in the quiet that opens a place for you deep within.”

~World in Prayer, 2 January 2014

“Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day. The commandment begins remember. Indeed, in the course of the working days, in the occupations and preoccupations of the week, we are inclined to forget God, to stop thinking about him. It is therefore necessary to set aside one day for the express purpose of thinking of him, a day to be consecrated to him, to be lived in his presence and in his awareness. We must insert a pause, suspend the course of our activities and our labors in order to place ourselves in an attitude of meditation and retreat, and to give our Master time to see and judge what we have done. This abstention, this recess, is therefore the first condition of sanctification.”

~Paul Claudel, 

“I Believe in God: aMeditation on the Apostle’s Creed”

“JUST DO IT.”

~Nike commercial

I’ve mentioned before that it takes me a long time to process life. The bigger the event or happening, the more space and time I need.  I always call it being a slow processor, but perhaps I should call it making space to be deliberate.

I strive for daily, quiet prayer as part of living a contemplative attitude in my life.

Yet I learned long ago that silence does not a contemplative make!

The business of busy-ness is alluring, enticing, permeating. It doesn’t take much effort for the little ego voices in my head to invade: I’m supposed to be busy. I should be busy. If I’m busy, I am important. If I’m busy, I matter. If I’m busy, I’ll be noticed. And without too much effort, I allow just busy-ness to take over, not simply the hours of my day—but more importantly, the space in my mind and my heart.

And opening up a deeper, bigger space for God in my life has nothing to do with time, either.

Here I am, working out of a home office, setting my own schedule—and complaining that I don’t have enough time… even to ingest the meaning of my own life.

It’s crazy talk, really.

I don’t know who said it first, but this is wisdom:

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I want different a different result. I want my life to be different. I want to make more space inside me for God.

So I have decided to begin by making a few changes to my routine.   

The first step I will begin with is one that I’ve thought about for a long time, but have not acted upon.  I will be deliberate about what fills my Sunday in my desire to “remember to keep holy the Sabbath.” As part of this effort, I will unplug from electronics on Sundays, including fasting from television, my computer, Facebook, email.

I will tell you about my second step tomorrow!