Artwork by Sr. Mary Grace Thul
Think of the stones Satan used to tempt Jesus in the desert. Satan placed them before Jesus with an invitation to change them into loaves of bread. Those stones symbolize our hearts, and Jesus did not come so that we might fed him. He came to transform us through the food of his body and blood. Even though those stones were meant for transformation, it would not come at the command of Jesus. He could have, but he would not. He waits on us to initiate the transformation by opening our hearts.
In the desert of the monastic life, we too are tempted to feed off the very things that are set before us, our rule or our observances, our silences or our fasts, our prayers or our vigils. They are not meant to feed us, but we are to feed them, with a burning spirit that comes from a heart open to deeper communication. It's the spirit that prompts the action, not the observance that calls for it, that gives sustenance to the soul.
Jean-Marie Howe writes to open our heart, to open a depth within ourselves: this is the aim of monastic life, and from this flows its fertility. The treasure hidden in the field of monastic life is depth: to arrive at such a depth of being that our whole life flows from the level of the heart, for it is there where God is, there where God gives to us and through us to the world.
He does more than give to us. When we cooperate in our own transformation, a unity occurs whereby we become like that which feeds us. It's the wonderful assimilation seen when a person takes nourishment, and it occurs on the spiritual plane as well.
Olivier Clement writes to seek the place of the heart. We live so much on the surface of ourselves. We live in our head and in our entrails, and all the vast spaces of the heart we have forgotten. I believe that we must rediscover them.
To be a stone is to be a hard thing. But if stones can be called forth into bread, then no human heart is beyond the spiritual grasp of unitive prayer with God.
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