NW Paulist Center for Evangelization & Reconciliation

MEANING BENEATH THE SURFACE, by Fr. Michael E. Evernden, CSP

She peers, silently, from beneath the grass.  Who is she: lover, friend, a professional model, or passing acquaintance?  Truth is, no one knows so we are left with our imaginations. Vincent van Gogh, in Paris, painted the canvas at right, titled “Patch of Grass” around 1887.  This unknown woman was discovered through a new X-ray scanning process.

    It is well known that about one third of van Gogh’s early paintings concealed other compositions under them.  Once again we are left to our imaginations as to why.  Perhaps canvases were too costly for a young artist, or maybe he didn’t think all that much of his early work.  Or maybe, just maybe, van Gogh somehow knew that in future ages someone would discover his hidden treasure.  It is said that art imitates life and I would like to add that art reflects the spirituality of the age.  Art, be it painting, pottery, poetry or photography is a spiritual activity.  There is a story behind every painting, ever shard of pottery or line of poetry and there are many more stories that flow from art: shared, discussed and meditated upon.
    Our holy scriptures, The Bible, is not a history book, not a book of laws and decrees, not an autobiography or biography; it is first and foremost God’s inspired work of art:  images, stories, word-photographs, poetry, epistles and gospels that speak of our living relationship with God from the very beginning to this present day.  To read the bible literally would be to simply look at a “Patch of Grass” and never see the hidden treasure, the woman peering silently beneath the surface.   Good art invites the viewer in, welcomes the viewer and says stay awhile and wait for further revelations.
    This word of welcome happens each time we open up to a page of scripture.  There is hidden treasure, treasure that has yet to be discovered, and will only be discovered, when we open our spirit to The Word set before us.  A word, a sentence, a phrase will speak personally to our present circumstance and offer us clues as to how we ought to proceed.  God’s living Word of art will: console, challenge, forgive, admonish and heal depending upon our needs and circumstances.
    The scriptures are a lot more about how God has painted a canvas of love and hope for us than it is about our setbacks and failures to embrace God’s vision of unconditional love for us.  Our egos still Edge God Out, we strive for the illusion of power and control, we create wars between nations and among our own family members – even within our very selves; and still God loves us unconditionally and is just waiting for us to view His (Her) painting and find there our true selves, the ultimate hidden treasure, peering silently beneath the pages, lines and poetry of our most Holy Scripture work of art.

CALLED TO BE MYSTICS

    Recently in the Portland Oregon Catholic Sentinel Fr. Ron Rolheiser wrote an article on the need for every Catholic to develop a mystical spirituality.  We often relegate mysticism to the isolation of a mountain monastery or to a very few saint-like people who have the time and energy to climb, let alone read, Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain.  Quoting Karl Rahner he made the point that “there would soon come a time when each of us will either be a mystic or a non-believer.”
    Those of us who grew up in the 1950’s, and maybe early 1960’s make up the last generation who’s faith was supported by family, neighborhood and the local parish church and school.  We can all hearken back, remembering our favorite aspect of that era of our faith lives.  There are a few diehards who muse that we can somehow turn back the clock to the ‘good old days,” or at least pretend by resuscitating old rites, sodalities and other once flourishing parish groups.  The reality is that our society, as we know it today, will not and cannot support such wishful -- whimsical thinking.
    There is a game going on whose goal is to try and fit our faith into our society, to fit our faith values into the values of our society; to demand that our culture exhibit our faith values.  The truth is that our society, as complex and complicated as it is, is far too small to contain the Wisdom of the Scriptures, and the traditions of our faith communities.  Truth is we cannot legislate morality, justice, equality, peace, justice or care for the environment.  Society at large, and especially society at the local and individual level, must be converted toward and into these qualities that will insure a future for us all.
    This does not mean that we should not work, labor and pray for legislative justice for all or work to reform and renew institutions, governmental and Church policies that simply don’t work or are unjust and injurious to our life on this planet; it means that something much more transformative is needed.  Each and everyone one of us must be converted from the inside out, we must anchor our lives in God’s divine and unbounded love for us so that we can love others, even those who wish us harm.  In other words we each need to have a mystical conversion, steeped in prayer, the ingestion of the Holy Wisdom of Scripture, and grounded in communities of faith whose aim in nothing less than the renewal of the face of the earth and the implementation of the living Realm of God in our midst.
    We can no long afford to simply go through the motions, say our prayers or satisfy ourselves with perfectly executed liturgies and feel good about ourselves.  Our prayer must come from a deep inner groaning that results in a new birth of active involvement in what needs to be done to transform the face of the earth.  It means that we need to take inventory; to cease participating in unjust institutions, cease doing harm to planet earth or any person or creature under Heaven in thought word or deed.  We need to cease reading the Scriptures and begin living them, to cease just going to Mass and become what we celebrate – bread for the world in thought, word and deed.  Nothing less than the Gospel is required of us.
    For this task we need each other more than ever before we need to become mystics, we need to pray and be transfigured -- converted together into the very Realm of God alive in our midst.
Peace, Michael E. Evernden, CSP

Listen to "I Believe" Communion as Evangelization: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90133974 

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SILENCE... 

If there is no silence beyond and within the words of doctrine, there is no religion, only religious ideology. For religion goes beyond words and actions, and attains to the ultimate truth in silence. When this silence is lacking, where there are only the "many words" and not the One Word, then there is much bustle and activity, but no peace, no deep thought, no understanding, no inner quiet. Where there is no peace, there is no light. The mind that is hyper-active seems to itself to be awake and productive, but it is dreaming. Only in silence and solitude, in the quiet of worship, the reverent peace of prayer, the adoration in which the entire ego-self silences and abases itself in the presence of the Invisible God, only in these "activities" which are "non-actions" does the spirit truly awake from the dream of a multifarious and confused existence.

Thomas Merton. Honorable Reader: Reflections on My Work. Edited by Robert E. Daggy (New York: Crossroad, 1989): 115.]
Thought for the Day

If you want a spiritual life, you must unify your life. A life is either all spiritual or not at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

Thomas Merton. Thoughts in Solitude (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1958): 56.

St. Rita's Retreat Center outside of Medford Oregon, site of a retreat/workshop for diocesan religious education teachers

Session Two, Giving Voice to the Word in Prayer and Sacrament in the main meeting room.

Lunch in the dinning room/libruary