Rule #3 For a Holy Self-Isolation: Listen to what God is trying to say to you

Georg Friedrich Stettner, Christus im Hause der Martha (Christ in Martha's House)

Yesterday afternoon I ventured out of the house to 'somewhere' (apart from the Sainsbury's behind the presbytery), for the first time in what feels like quite a while. I walked from Tooting Bec down to Tooting, and then on to St. George's Hospital, where I had an appointment at the chaplaincy. They are, as you may imagine, looking for priests at the moment; and, it looks like I might be volunteering to help out the very energetic Catholic Chaplain there - Fr. Mark Higgins - with what may come during the next weeks. I was struck, on my walk, though, by how busy Tooting was - even with all the shops closed; and yet the hospital, which I have visited many times, was quieter than I have ever seen before. It felt, perhaps, like the calm before the storm.

Being confined to the presbytery has seemed to me, quite often, to be a lot like sheltering from a storm. Just as the wind can rage and yet we feel safe and secure under our roofs, so too, as I have heard so much in the news about the dreadful spread of the Coronavirus, I have felt, nevertheless fairly insulated, cosily confined at 9 Tooting Bec Rd. Yet, we are in a storm; and, like the disciples in the storm tossed boat on the sea of Galilee, now is the time to call upon Our Lord, with perhaps a greater urgency than before.

But, here is an important point, about the way in which Our Lord works: He never lets a good storm go to waste, without seeking to teach us something.

[H]e awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?” (Mark.4.35-41)

When the disciples call upon Jesus, His first action is to bring peace. Once the calm has emerged, however, He then challenges them - have you no faith? The end result is that the disciples are left wondering in awe and amazement, at who this person in their lives is. You might say that they are drawn to contemplation.

Where is the storm for you?

It is very tempting for us to focus on the 'meta-storm' in our society - the big picture of what our nation is trying to handle. However, we must be careful not to lose sight of the fact that for each of us, our personal experience of this storm looks and feels at little different. For some it is the crisis of feeling cooped up and confined, for others the feeling of separation from loved ones. Some people are under massive pressure from important work, others are struggle with a sense of purpose now that they cannot work. Some tired and drained, others bored and listless. Fear will have come to dominate some people's interior worlds, cynicism may have invaded others. For each of us a totally unique combination of emotional, psychological and spiritual responses will shape the storm around us and within us.

And so in an individual and particular way we need to call on the Lord Jesus to be the voice of calm for us. And we need to be attentive to the particular lesson He wants to teach us, the particular challenge He wants to issue, or the word of peace He wants to impart to us, as individual disciples.

My great hope for this time in which the Church has had to disperse, is that it can be an occasion for us all to take greater responsibility for our own spiritual lives, by making sure that find and give time to God. Time to spend sat at the feet of Jesus, as did St. Mary Magdalen, the sister of St. Martha. As I said in rule #1, it is crucial to the spiritual life to have a structure of prayer throughout the day. However, the soul of the spiritual life is that part which I described as 'Meditation/Quiet Prayer'. This is time we give to sharing with Jesus of our inmost thoughts and feelings, but then also listen to what He would say to us. There are many ways to do this , but by far the most important, is to open our hearts to encounter Him in the Scriptures. In this way we allow the Word, who is God, into our minds and hearts.


Resources for Meditation/Quiet Prayer

A book my parishioners  have often heard me recommend on this topic is "The Better Part" by Fr. John Bartunek, which claims to be - and I think successfully manages to be - a complete 'one stop shop' resource for encountering Christ in the Gospels. The book starts with a concise, yet thorough guide to Scriptural meditation. It then proceeds to offer the complete Gospel texts, three meditations on each passage, some words to stimulate personal conversation with Christ, some questions for reflection (or perhaps group discussion) and then references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, to show how Church teaching is rooted in the Scriptures.

This used to be available in one volume for around £25 - and there are still some copies floating around the internet at that price, and some used copies too. However, the print was quite small, and so now it has been produced in four volumes, although, of necessity I suppose this has increased the price. The good news for Kindle users is that you can buy the ebook for a bargain £6.52.

If you are looking for a free resource on personal prayer, I would, rather shamelessly, point you in the direction of a course a produced a few years ago - A Practical Introduction to Intimate Prayer. It is put up in a rather amateur way, but if you were to follow it over the course of six weeks, spending some time everyday in prayer, I believe it would give you a broad taster of a number of different ways of spending time silently with the Lord.

A time for Reflection, A Wake up Call

As I said in my sermon "A Wake up Call for the Church", this unprecedented period of pause in the ordinary life of the Christian community cannot be wasted. It would be a tragedy, if once it is over, we simply go back to doing everything exactly the same way as before, without having taken stock, reflected - and indeed listened deeply to what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to us. This isn't the job of the Archbishop, or your priests, alone. Each one of us, called, by name, as disciples and has a role to play, which no one else can. Let us use this once in a lifetime chance to go into the interior desert of our souls, and there hear what the Lord has to say...