Leaving the driveway to begin our Lenten journey there is a question to be faced and answered: are the directions for my spiritual journey at hand? Is it sufficient to think that Easter Sunday is the finis ad quem, the end to which we are directing our prayer, fasting and almsgiving?The Isaih reading (58:1-9) speaks of God's challenge to practices the peole were considering as suitable -- but those practices were not God's ways, God's will.
Fr. Henri Nouwen, now deceased, was a priest who walked a long spiritual journey before he found the God his heart was seeking in many ways, many different apostolic activities. He is one of the modern spiritual writers whose wisdom has greatly impacted my life. How I wish I had the opportunity to know him when he used to come to the Jesuit residence at Holy Trinity parish where he would celebrate Mass in our house chapel and then spend some time with the retired pastor, my former Novice Master, in spiritual direction.
Nouwen once wrote "Without solitude, it is virturally impossible to live the spiritual life." He believed all of us need guides on our journeys. What we come to know of God in quiet prayer becomes the subject of accountability in life. Our church, the fiat community provides us avenues to evaluate our knowledge of God. Spiritual groth on the journey requires in most instances a regular experience of sharing our most intimate experiences, a bearing of one's soul. For Nouwen, spiritual formation is a necessity in seeking to build a genuine spiritual life. In his heart he came to believe with genuine conviction that a spiritual life will always be a dream or an unfinished journey with "discipline, practice and accountability."
A spiritual discipline is a coat of many colors that we are challenged to wear. And is such a "coat?" Nouwen says it is anything that brings a halt to running away from quiet and prayer. Putting order into one's life is the basic of every spiritual discipline. Spiritual discipline is the formaton that leads to the peace and happiness of a fulfilled spiritual journey. So, is it that difficult to determine that a good road map is necessary for a spiritual journey.
Nouwen would no doubt ask as the journey begins "do you have a good map for the journey ahead." Do you know where you are going? Do you know how to stop the running away from quiet and prayer?
If there are typos, please excuse them. blogspot.com has lost its spell checker for the last several days!!!
"For many of us prayer means nothing more than speaking with God. And since it usually seems to be quite a one-sided affair, prayer simply means talking to God.... And when it seems, increasingly, that I am talking into the dark, it is not so strange that I soon begin to suspect that my dialogue with God is in fact a monologue. Then I begin to ask myself: To whom am I really speaking, God or myself." (99 Sayings, page 5)
