Lectio
“Abba Nilus also said, ‘The monk who loves interior peace will remain invulnerable to the shafts of the enemy, but he who mixes with crowds constantly receives blows.’”
— Abba Nilus, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection
Meditatio
Solitude is a precious gift from the Lord, as is the prayer of contemplation that sometimes arises within it. It is not aloneness, and it is not simply being apart from others. Solitude is the graced place within where we rest in God, even when that rest feels more like emptiness than fullness.
Solitude is the Sabbath of the heart. It is the quiet place within where God calls us to be still, to listen rather than talk, and to entrust our whole selves to His care.
Solitude may include, and even benefit from, extended time alone with God, but it does not depend on it. Prompted by the Holy Spirit, it is communion with the Source of all love, all rest, and all peace. Where we are, or who we are with, matters less, because in God we are never finally alone. Even in the ache of loneliness, which is real and which God does not ask us to deny, we are not abandoned.
Nor is this a retreat from the world’s wounds. A heart rooted in God can walk through a crowd and still be at home. It has not grown hard, only quiet enough to be held. Whatever strikes us there strikes a heart already sheltered in Another, who feels the blow with us and holds us through it.
Solitude, then, is a graced state in which God is felt, whether we are alone or surrounded by others, though often faintly, and sometimes only known in faith when feeling fails. Contemplation is the deepening of that state, as Christ draws us more fully to Himself and shares His peace, a gift we cannot earn but only consent to. Solitude is the Sabbath to which Christ invites us to return in every moment, so that our whole lives may become one moment of ceaseless prayer lived with and for Him.
Oratio
Ever Asked
Your call
undeniable
Your pull
irresistible
Your grace
inconceivable
all You have ever done
is to love me
with everything You are
all You have ever asked
was that I let You
with everything I am
Contemplatio
Wherever you are as you read this, in a crowded room or an empty one, you are not finally alone. Even if you feel nothing at all, He is nearer to you than you are to yourself. Be still, and let Him love you as He wills.
Related Scripture
“He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”
— Mark 6:31 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Remembered Before We Remember: Hyperichius on Grace and the Wandering Mind (Lectio Divina), which turns to another desert father to show that a life of quiet attention to God rests on a grace that comes before any effort of ours.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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