Newspaper Page Text
April 12,1979
PAGE 5
I
How Can I
Conquer Loneliness?
BY SUSAN ANNETTE MUTO
A first response to this cry is to recognize
that I am not alone in my loneliness. Loneliness
belongs to the human condition. What could be
more lonely than my birth? For nine months I
am enclosed comfortably in the womb of my
mother, then the forces of life compel me to
make my lonely entrance into the world.
Though others are there to greet me, my cries
reveal how frightened I am.
The solution to such loneliness is not to deny
it — not to escape the pain by trying to lose
ourselves in our work or in empty socializing —
but to face how we are feeling and be drawn by
this pain into personal reflection. We may
discover then that to be all alone is really to be
all-one with others and in the deepest sense
with God. Now begins the transition from
loneliness to solitude.
I leave behind the smoke-filled cocktail
A
Each of us has known ioneiiness. It is a
state that belongs to the human
condition. We are expelled from the
security of the womb into a huge,
unknown world, and even though many
surround us, we are afraid. And no one
can take the journey of death with us.
Again, we go into a world we really do
not know.
When loneliness strikes us, we cannot
escape it. But we can face it. When we
make the transition between loneliness
and solitude, we experience spiritual
growth. Solitude is quite different from
loneliness. Susan Muto defines solitude as
“a with-experience. It is being alone with
my thoughts, in communion with those I
love and with my God in prayer.”
In Mark’s Gospel story of the blind
man of Bethsaida, Jesus cures him, but
not all at once. When Jesus touches his
eyes the first time, the man is able to see
but he does not see clearly. People do not
look like people to him, but like “walking
trees.” The second time Jesus touches
him, his vision cleared. This story
illustrates that faith often comes
gradually, that we do not see clearly all at
once. So, too, is it with loneliness. We
cannot always immediately make that
transition to solitude that transcends
loneliness. Only as we come to see more
clearly can we fully realize that we are
never alone. God is all around us. As this
realization dawns and comes to fullness,
we conquer loneliness.
Abbot Colomba Marmion, a
20th-century spiritual master, looked for
joy in the life of the church during a time
when Jansenism generated the image of
an angry God, a concentration on the
sinfulness of man and excessive attention
to moral guilt. His picture of God was
Jesus, standing in the throne room of
heaven, with his arms outstretched,
holding up the hands that were pierced
with love for us, and urging forth the
ocean of the Father’s love for people.
With such an invitation, loneliness for a
prolonged period does not have to be.
What could be more lonely than my death?
No matter how much I am loved, or how close I
am to family and friends, no one can die my
death for me. Alone, I go to the alone. And yet,
even to face loneliness as part of the human
condition is to cope with its pain.
Loneliness is the pain of being alone while
solitude is the joy of being alone. What is the
difference? All of us recall times when we’ve
known the terrible feeling of being alone in a
crowd or of being shut out bfy someone we
love. We want to speak, but we are at a loss for
words. We want to tell the other what we are
going through, but we are not understood.
Another instance of loneliness can occur in
old age, but perhaps the most primary form of
loneliness occurs when we cut ourselves off
from God.
party, the idle chatter, the superficiality of the
crowd, and go off on my own. I inhale the
fragrant, moist night air. I am under the stars
by myself — alone — and yet not alone.
Somehow I feel “with” myself, the self I really
am, not the self I cover up by the chit-chat of
the cocktail hour. Such is a moment of genuine
solitude, and it is a joy. I regain my sense of self
and awaken to who I truly am.
Loneliness leads to introspection. We become
filled with the smallness of our own life. We
cannot make the generous gesture to reach
beyond our self-preoccupation to the other.
Being present to people in their pain, stopping
to listen to their cares — such outgoing acts as
these help us to look beyond our self
absorption and isolation.
In loneliness, we speak about being without:
without friends, without the possibility of
communication, without hope for the future,
seemingly without God. These experiences of
being without point to the difference between
loneliness and solitude. For solitude is a
with-experience. It is being alone with my
thoughts, in communion with those I love and
with my God in prayer. As long as we remain in
the prison of loneliness, we cannot grow in
love, which finds its roots in God. If we reach
out to others, they will reach out to us.
Solitude deepens our communion with others
and with God.
The experience of solitude unclutters our
lives of useless worries. We cease to brood over
loneliness. We allow ultimate questions to
surface: Who am I/Where is my life going? How
can I follow best the directives of the Holy
Spirit?
In his poem of love between the soul and
God, the “Spiritual Canticle,” St. John of the
Cross has a haunting stanza that captures the
meaning of solitude in the life of every person.
He writes, in effect, that our deepest selves can
only find fulfillment in God before whom we
must one day stand alone.
She lived in solitude, And now in
solitude has built her nest; And in
solitude He guides her. He alone, who
also bears In solitude the wound of love.
This stanza is about the soul-bride who finds
and rejoices solely in Christ, her beloved. She
lives in solitude, detached from satisfactions
and afflictions, from consolation and desolation
— free as a solitary bird to enjoy the
companionship of God and therewith
• communion with all members of his creation.
Freed, however momentarily, from all the
things of the world that are incumbent upon
her, she rises above them and responds to the
subtle whispers of the Holy Spirit in the depths
of heart. Her one desire is to do the will of
God, to live for him alone.
Seeing the soul in such peaceful solitude, the
beloved feeds her with every blessing and guides
her to the high places of God. He finds her
worthy to bear the wounds of love he has borne
for her sake. Through solitude, she gains true
peace and liberty of spirit.
There can thus be no better way to conquer
loneliness than to try with God’s grace to
transform it into solitude. If we take up the
challenge offered by Scripture and the spiritual
masters, we too may enjoy- the fruits of
solitude, namely, that deep companionship that
exists between the soul and God, true liberty of
spirit and true knowledge of self. No matter
where we happen to be, whether in a crowded
bus or on a deserted beach, we may feel present
to who we are and to the divine source of all
life. We see ourselves as God’s children called to
union with the Father and communion with
creation.
How, then, can we be lonely?
The Blind Man Of Bethsaida
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
Just as the series of events following the first
interpretation of the multiplication of loaves
ended with the cure of a deaf-mute (Mark
7,31-37), so the series following the second
interpretation ends with the giving of sight to a
blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8,22-26). Mark is
the only one to record this latter miracle, and it
serves an important purpose in his overall plan,
which is a demonstration of the gradual
recognition of Jesus and the need of God’s help
to bring about that recognition.
The story has many points of similarity to
that of the cure of the deaf-mute. In both
instances the event takes place outside of
Galilee, the afflicted person is brought to Jesus
by others with a request for a laying on of
hands. In each instance Jesus takes the person
away from the crowd, uses saliva and, after the
cure, enjoins silence on him. There is no
mention of exorcism or faith on the part of the
individual.
The cure of the blind man, however, is
distinguished by an unusual feature. Ordinarily
the effect of Jesus’ intervention, whether direct
or indirect, is instantaneous. Here it is gradual.
After putting saliva on the man’s eyes and
laying hands on him, Jesus asks him: “Can you
see anything?” The fellow opens his eyes and
says, “I can see people, but they look like
walking trees!” A second time Jesus lays his
hands on him and now he can see everything
clearly (Mark 8, 23-25). Perhaps this seeming
failure of the first attempt embarrassed
Matthew and Luke, so they omitted the
incident.
Whether or no, the story seems to be
basically factual and its implications for Mark
were most interesting. It illustrated that faith
often comes gradually, that we do not see
clearly, immediately, in a flash of white light.
He put it in its present position deliberately,
just before the opening of the disciples’ eyes to
Jesus’ identity as Messiah at Caesarea Philippi.
Just as here there were two gestures of
enlightenment in the case of the blind man, one
of them accompanied by a question, so there
were two questions about his identity directed
to the disciples. Only after the second did Peter
answer: “You are the Messiah” (Mark 8,29).
Still, even this recognition was distorted by
current ideas of what sort of person the Messiah
was to be. So, when Jesus went on immediately
to foretell his suffering and death, Peter
protested and Jesus had to reprimand him.
But even if they had recognized him as the
Messiah he intended to be, they would still have
been seeing something “like trees walking.” For
he was not just the long-awaited anointed one;
he was also the Lord, the Son of God. This they
would not, could not have known unless God
intervened to open their eyes so that they
“could see everything clearly.”
That intervention came only when he raised
his Son from the dead. And even then, they at
first “thought they were seeing a ghost” (Luke
24,37). He still had to open their eyes and their
minds to the full truth (Luke 24,45).
Only then could they be commissioned to go
forth and proclaim the good news to the whole
world (Matthew 28,18-20). Before then, just as
he had enjoined silence on the rehabilitated
deaf-mute and blind man, he had given the
disciples “strict orders not to tell anyone about
him” (Mark 8,30). It would have been
dangerous and misleading to proclaim a
half-truth, even more so to propagate a
distortion.
People who have enjoyed the light of faith
almost from birth tend to take it for granted,
much as they do their natural sight. It is
difficult for them to realize how necessary it is
if they are to see the truth clearly, and they are
as infrequently grateful for this inestimable gift
as they are for their own two good eyes. Faith,
like eyesight, can grow dim, and truth gets
confused. People look like walking trees. Then
God must step.in with his healing touch so their
sight can be restored and they can “see
everything clearly” (Mark 8,25).
FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
WRITES, “After putting saliva on the
man’s eyes and laying hands on him,
Jesus asks him, ‘Can you see anything?’
The fellow opens his eyes and says, ‘I
can see people, but they look like
walking trees!’ A second time Jesus lays
his hands on him and now he can see
everything clearly.” This etching of
Jesus curing the blind man is by Marvin
Hayes from the book “God’s Images,”
Copyright, 1977, Oxmoor House. (NC
Photo)
.
“LONELINESS,” Susan Annette
Muto writes, “is the pain of being
alone, while solitude is the joy of being
alone. The solution to . . . loneliness is
not to deny it — not to escape the pain
by trying to lose ourselves in our work
or in empty socializing — but to face
how we are feeling and be drawn by
this pain into personal reflection. We
may discover then that to be all alone is
really to be all one with others and in
the deepest sense with God. Now
begins the transition from loneliness to
solitude.” (NC Photo by Paul Tucker)
Abbot Marmion
Of Belgium-An Ideal Monk
BY FATHER ALFRED McBRIDE, O.PRAEM.
In the early part of the 20th century, when
most Catholics were nourishing their spiritual
lives by personal devotions, Benedictine Abbot
Columba Marmion was inspiring people to find
spiritual riches in the Bible, the liturgy and the
rule of St. Benedict. Irish by birth and
upbringing. Marmion migrated to Belgium and
became a monk of Maredsous Abbey.
Eventually he became its abbot. He is best
remembered as a man of boundless good humor
who loved to laugh and make others laugh.
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spiritual sermons attracted so much attention
that he was moved by his listeners to publish
them in book form. His three most influential
works were “Christ, the Life of the Soul,”
“Christ, the Ideal of the Monk,” and “Christ in
His Mysteries.”
In a time when the aftermath of Jansenism
generated the image of an angry God, a
concentration on the sinfulness of man and
excessive attention to moral guilt, Marmion’s
approach was a breath of fresh air. He drew his
listeners’ attention to the goodness and love of
Christ. He spoke of grace more than guilt. He
preached of love more than one’s sinfulness. He
was aware of the frailty of people, but he was
more aware of Christ’s graciousness. He knew
that sin abounded, but he favored the biblical
teaching that grace abounds even more.
In his masterpiece, “Christ, the Life of the
Soul,” Marmion brought to life the possible
adventures which a believer could have in a
deep relationship with God. He repeated certain
phrases to characterize this love affair of the
Christian with God. To him we are called to be
in the loving arms of the Father. To those
depressed by sin and guilt, Marmion held up the
image of Jesus, standing in the throne room of
heaven with his arms outstretched, holding up
the hands that were pierced with love for us
and urging forth the ocean of the Father’s love
for the people of the earth.
Marmion’s sunny disposition had no time for
the pessimism of Christians who worried too
much about whether God would forgive so
lowly and sinful and guilt-laden creatures as
they.
He helped people see how the seasons of the
church year were times to enter deeply into the
riches of love, acceptance and forgiveness
available to them by Christ’s work. “Christ in
his Mysteries,” treated the great moments of
liturgy — Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter,
Pentecost, celebrations of Mary and the saints
— as times of faith that would help the believers
gain access to the mystery of Christ and his
concern for people.
Like a dog that tenaciously holds onto a
bone, Marmion insistently stayed with the
virtue of faith as the key that opened the
mystery of God. Marmion stood easily between
the poles of personal faith and the mystery of
God and inspired his listeners and readers to do
the same.
Combining themes from the rule of St.
Benedict and his favorite author, St. Paul,
Marmion outlined a spiritual vision for the
monks in “Christ, The Ideal of the Monk.” He
took his basic premise from the rule of
Benedict as dramatized in a scene at the gate of
the monastery. A candidate arrives to join the
monks. The abbot asks the candidate, “What do
you seek?” In the ensuing dialogue, Benedict
instructs future abbots to discern whether the
candidate is truly seeking Christ. That is to be
the main criterion for entry and commitment
to the monastic life.
Marmion uses scholastic language to develop
this point. Jesus is to be the exemplary cause of
the monk’s life and salvation. This means that
Jesus is the role model for the monk. However,
Jesus is also to be the efficient cause of the
monk’s holiness. Jesus is more than a sacred
hero to be imitated. He is full of the
transforming power of love that will renew and
remake the heart and soul of the monk.
Marmion’s writings transcend the ordinary in
their style, but they are human in their
intention and mood. He practiced what he
preached. The process for his canonization has
begun. His body rests in the monastic choir
where he preached so much love. His spirit rests
in every person who has known and loved his
teachings.
KNOW
YOUR FAITH
(All Articles On This Page Copyrighted 1979 By N. C. News Service)