Rule #1 For Staying Home - Have a Rule (Part One)

One of the many 'little' privileges of being a priest is the unrivalled access one has to the Church - anytime of day or night, even when nobody else is there.

However, as I finished my prayers in the Church, yesterday evening, it was certainly a poignant thought to think that 'empty' is going to be the new normal for our places of worship.

We can all be extremely grateful, of course, that the Bishops are not only permitting, but encouraging us to keep the Churches open during this time. St. Anselm's (Tooting Bec) will be open for people (who are not self-isolating) to come and pray everyday from 10am - 6pm; and, knowing the people here, I am certain there will be many who take up the chance. It is well worth reflecting that Adoration of our Lord, truly present in the tabernacle, is an extension of the Mass and so a real participation in the sacred liturgy.

Nevertheless, the experience is not the same as coming together for the celebration of Mass, which is the foundation for most Catholics in their experience of prayer. I note that one priest in America seems to have gone to quite some length to create a 'community feel' for his private Masses, installing pictures of all his parishioners.

[I suspect I don't need to point out to too many of those who know me, that I won't be doing likewise - not least, because I will be enjoying the opportunity to say Mass on the rather splendid High Altar at St. Anselm's!]

Yet, this reflection on the shift which is now about to take place in the spiritual experience of the Catholic community is something which none of us should pass over. And the way in which we embrace or shun that shift will be quite important for our lives. When, please God, we gather together as a community again in 3, 6 or 12 months time, the ways in which we, as individuals, have used this time away will make an enormous difference to whether we will be collectively stronger or weaker than before. Each one of us therefore has a little part to play in the onward story of Catholic England.

It is important, therefore, I think, to offer some basic and practical rules for engaging in a more solitary spiritual life. For some of you, who are still able to go out to work, the shift will be finding space for God when that main fixed point in the week for focussing on Him is gone. But, for those who are suddenly confined to home - either self-isolating or working from home - the problem may be less finding the space, and more knowing how to use it.

For these changed circumstances, we might fruitfully look to the Church's monastic tradition, which can perhaps offer us something of a model. You might well think it odd to reach for a community life centred on public worship as a model for a time of greater isolation. And yet, there are many ways in which the monastic spiritual life - which is very much one of interior solitude - can be instructive to us.

Jesus Solana, Monk's Loneliness

In particular, today, I want to focus on the idea of having a rule, or a rule of life. The rule of life is central to the success of a monk in his quest to come closer to God, and it will be central to us as well. As modern people we can be instinctively distrustful of rules, but perhaps it is helpful to think of this kind of rule more as a measure or yardstick, which will help us to assess our progress in our goal. In this case the goal will be to use the time given us in these new circumstances in a spiritually fruitful way.

We will all of us have experienced days that were fulfilling, and very often those days were fulfilling because they were balanced. Approximately the right amount of prayer, work and relaxation. Likewise, we are familiar with days where any one of those has assumed a disproportionate role in our day, to the detriment of the others, and with this comes a sense of interior dissatisfaction.

The monastic rule of life tries to overcome this, simply by having a plan. By having a proper plan for each ordinary day, the monk has a clear idea of what he is aiming for. Surely sometimes it goes well, and perhaps others not so. Yet, in either case he is able to review and measure what went well or what went wrong.

In the changed circumstances in which many of us are now living, we will have lost the subconscious anchors that were holding our daily lives largely in balance - appointments, the expectations of others, the needs of those around us, or the adrenaline rush of trying to juggle a number of spinning plates in our lives. The danger is that when these are suddenly removed, we lose our balance completely.

My challenge to you, therefore, is to try and put together a rule for yourself for this new time. Start with times for prayer, and then plan your work or main focus of activity for the day, and then the times when you will rest. As people in the world, we do not need to be neurotic about following it exactly, and we surely need to have a rule with a certain flexibility. But having a rule to aim at, and against which we can measure our endeavours, which give us a much better chance.

I will circle back to this topic in a day, or two, but in the meantime, I'd be delighted to hear any thoughts, or see your first stab at a good rule of life for living in the Coronavirus lockdown!