{"id":4340,"date":"2013-02-19T07:47:53","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T07:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2013\/02\/invenit-eum-in-terra-deserta\/"},"modified":"2013-02-19T07:47:53","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T07:47:53","slug":"invenit-eum-in-terra-deserta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2013\/02\/invenit-eum-in-terra-deserta\/","title":{"rendered":"Invenit eum in terra deserta"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"christ+in+the+wilderness.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Christ Among the Wild Beasts<\/em> by Moretto da Brescia (1498-1554)<\/small><\/div>\n

There are souls who, if they are to be seen by God and heard by God,
\nmust renounce being seen by men and heard by men.
\nThere are souls whom God calls to wait upon Him alone,
\nand to look to Him alone for all things.
\nParadoxically, in doing this,
\nsuch souls wait upon the entire world;
\nthey bind up the wounds of sinners,
\nconsole the afflicted,
\nwipe the tears of those who mourn,
\nand cause the pure light of the Gospel
\nto shine even in the most hardened hearts.
\nThose engaged in this way of life are often tempted
\nto exchange the invisible for what is visible,
\nto choose the conversation of men over the silence of God,
\nand to prefer human strategies over abandonment to Divine Providence.
\nSuch are the temptations of any one called to abide with Christ in the desert.
\nThe mystery of Jesus in the desert
\nis continued in the mystery of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
\nThere, He is present on the very battleground
\nwhere demons assail the souls of men;
\nthere, He is removed from the intrigues of the worldly;
\nthere, He keeps a divine silence while, all about him,
\nwagging tongues fill the air with a divisive clamour.
\nThere, He offers HImself as a pure Victim,
\na holy Victim, a spotless Victim to the Father;
\nthere He offers Himself as a living, supersubstantial Bread
\nto satisfy the hungers of those who go about the city
\nin search of something to relieve the pangs of an empty heart.
\nThe imitation of Our Lord’s Eucharistic life
\nis the ultimate rule of those called out into the desert.
\nThere is no cloister more all-encompassing
\nthan that of the sacred species enclosing the very substance of God.
\nThe Sacred Host is the mystery of the Word keeping silence;
\nof the Creator of all hiding himself beneath a creaturely veil;
\nof infinite glory circumscribed in what is utterly humble;
\nof limitless power covered in what is delicate and fragile;
\nand of a blazing fire contained in what is consumable.
\nThe temptations of those who have followed Christ into His desert
\nknow little variation through the ages.
\nThey are the temptation to appear when one should disappear;
\nto speak when one should be silent;
\nto grasp when one should let go;
\nto want something when one should want nothing;
\nto prefer perishable bread to the imperishable Word of God;
\ncontrol to abandonment;
\npower to weakness;
\nsomethingness to nothingness;
\nseeing to believing;
\nappearances to substance;
\nbeing some one to being no one;
\nand being seen to being hidden.
\nShould such a one even write on the internet?
\nShould he show his face,
\nor reveal his thoughts,
\nor share the bread that has been given him?
\nThe question is not a new one.
\nI think of Jerome and Evagrius writing in their deserts,
\nof the Carthusian writing in his cell,
\nof an immense body of writers who, without leaving the cloister,
\nhave preached to the world,
\nspoken heart to heart,
\nand given a taste for silence to souls caught up in the noise and frenzy of the world.
\nI cannot attempt to answer the question for anyone but myself.
\nThere is, I suppose, an element of “hide and seek” in the monastic life.
\nThe cloister is not altogether impenetrable.
\nIt is open to the transmission of life
\nwhile protecting the transmitter.
\nFor some, all of the time,
\nand for others, some of the time,
\nthe hiddenness will be complete,
\nthe silence absolute,
\nthe separating veil utterly opaque.
\nFor me, it will be by looking into the Sacred Host
\nas into a mirror
\nthat I will come to understand
\nthe desert into which He has called me
\nand the degree to which He would have me offer
\nto those who care to receive it
\na word out of His Eucharistic silence,
\n— humbly, always, and from a hidden place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christ Among the Wild Beasts by Moretto da Brescia (1498-1554) There are souls who, if they are to be seen by God and heard by God, must renounce being seen by men and heard by men. There are souls whom God calls to wait upon Him alone, and to look to Him alone for all <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-180","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}