Mary, Martha, and ... Milton?

     The 29th of July is celebrated in the Catholic Church as the Feast of St Martha. You will recall, of course, that Martha was the hyperactive housekeeper who was anxious to make Jesus comfortable, and her sister Mary was the reflective introvert who was content to sit at his feet and listen to him.

     Mary and Martha have long served as prototypes for the two basic kinds of religious life: Mary is the model for the cloistered contemplative nun, while Martha is the model for the active sister who remains in the world to teach, nurse, or evangelize. Both are necessary to the world; indeed, they are essential, and represent the two crucial apostolates in the church—prayer and action. One cannot succeed without the other; but, as Jesus himself said, "Mary has chosen the better part." Prayer is the key to a real relationship with God; it is the world's silent mover and shaker. For this reason, I'm saddened that there are people, and, yes, even some Catholics, who deride the contemplative religious life. Some even deem it "unchristian." I can only surmise that they are either grossly misinformed about the life, or simply refuse to understand it. After all, it has been a part of the Christian church since its very beginning and even before.

     The reason I thought of Milton (the poet, that is) is that I was reading an essay this morning from Ann Fadiman's wonderful book Ex Libris. The essay, entitled "Scorn Not the Sonnet," is written in two parts; the second part deals with the author's father and the rapid decline of his eyesight due to acute retinal necrosis. Fadiman's father was an editor and critic; that he was suddenly no longer able to read text could have been a real setback for him, had his daughter not reminded him that Milton wrote Paradise Lost after he went blind. Ann and her father then remembered Milton's great sonnet, "On His Blindness."

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact day labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

     When I was in the monastery, our chaplain at the time, who was a great lover of literature and extremely well-read, quoted the last five and a half lines of this sonnet in one of his homilies, in reference to the contemplative vocation. He said that there are times when it's difficult to pray, times when our fervor grows disconcertingly dim, when meditation and contemplation are fraught with distraction and dryness. Though we are aware of this when it happens, we can do little but carry on as best we can and wait for God's help, remembering that even our feeble, seemingly unfruitful efforts are precious to him and may do good somewhere to someone, without our knowing.

     Contemplatives are Marys, still and silent in the Lord's presence, waiting for him to speak and pondering his word. Contemplation is the highest form of prayer; its mysterious power helps sustain and nourish the Body of Christ, his Church. "They also serve who only stand and wait."

The Quest for Silence

     This world is inundated with noise. So much so, that we have grown uncomfortable with silence. But it is in silence that we can speak more clearly to God, and in silence that God's voice is most clearly heard.

     When I was a professional musician, my days were filled with sound—making it, hearing it, evaluating it, refining it. When silence did, in rare moments, emerge like a sudden sun ray through storm clouds, its "noise" was deafening and discomfiting, a waste of the aural sense, a mere blank space. A mockingbird's recital, the tiny tapping of rain, even the distant hum of traffic— anything was preferable to that most uneasy of companions—total silence. Quiet was easier; quiet was the soft white blanket I could lay over sound, muffling it, but never banishing it altogether.

     Total silence became important to me when I recovered my faith and needed to communicate with God in the depths of my soul. I didn't want the silence that is simply a void; I didn't want the mere emptying of distracting or negative thoughts which is its own end and which has become so popular in recent decades. I wanted to meet God in the silence and allow him to fill the void, to let him become my thought and my very conscience. This is the goal of Christian meditation, the goal of the Christian contemplative, whether in the cloister or in the world.

     I have been to New York City many times, but I especially remember the first time I went there after leaving the monastery. Granted, I had been back in San Antonio for some months; but San Antonio, and the kind of life I live here, is calm and quiet compared to Manhattan (then again, most cities are). Just before that particular visit to New York, I had spent ten days at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut, a period of peace in the company of people whose daily goal it is to maintain a state of prayerful recollection. Arriving in Manhattan literally straight from the abbey, my senses were assaulted by the cacophony of traffic, the scurrying of crowds, and, I have to say, general rudeness and lack of simple consideration. On nearly every face was that focused yet unseeing gaze of someone completely absorbed in his own teeming thoughts and the business of the day. Not one looked happy or at peace.

     Now, before you bombard me with objections and arguments, I realize that I'm making a huge generalization and that my impressions were strongly colored by my stay at the abbey; there are many things I love about New York, and I always look forward to my visits there; but I couldn't help being struck by the disheartening realization that God is becoming more and more drowned out by noise everywhere—the noise, both actual and metaphorical, of "living," and the noise inside our own heads. For nearly two and a half years in the silence of the cloister, God was at the center of my consciousness, my pulse, my speech. I mourn the loss of that silence, as I sit here typing this with the television on not three feet away (not my choice, my parents'). It has become a struggle, day to day, to find those precious pockets of silence in which to still my mind and body and listen to the deep stirrings of the Spirit. I strive for prayerful recollection while going about the business of my day, but I know how essential silent prayer and contemplation are, if only for fifteen minutes a day, to one's spiritual growth and health. The quest for silence will and should never end.