Disclaimer: The series of letters entitled “Correspondence on the Monastic Vocation”, while based on the real questions of a number of men in various places and states of life, is entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, institutions, or places is purely coincidental.
Letter 21: John Paul
Dear Father Prior,
I write to you this evening in turmoil and doubt. You have been a support to me since my return to the Church and helped me to grow towards union with God. I see the wisdom of your decision to have me practice the ordinary Catholic life for a few years before asking to enter the monastery. I must reach out to you now because I have the impression, from reading certain things on the internet, that everything I have believed and, with your encouragement, tried to practice is somehow flawed. You know my struggles. You know the books that I have read. You know the authors who have marked my life, corrected my prejudices, and given me hope. You know how the discovery of the traditional Mass opened me to
Again and again, I return to Pope Saint John Paul II’s magnificent Apostolic Letter 2 May 1995, Orientale Lumen. When it was promulgated twenty–three years ago, its luminous doctrine pierced my heart and compelled me to a prayer of adoration and silence. I often put it into the hands of men at the beginning of the monastic journey. I have referred to it in every retreat that I have been called upon to preach. Orientale Lumen treats of tradition, of monasticism, of spiritual fatherhood, of the sacramental economy, of the sacred liturgy, of the adorable face of Christ, and of the adoring silence of which we all have need lest, Pope Saint John Paul II says, we “delude ourselves that it is enough to heap word upon word to attract people to the experience of God”. Here, then, is the magnificent portion of the text in which Pope Saint John Paul II summons the Church to enter the silence distilled by adoration in spirit and in truth.
Call and Response
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