Prophetic Mission/Message

Last week I found a new Merton book in the second hand bookshop, it's a gem entitled "Contemplation in a World of Action".  A great read for anyone digging into thoughts on modern monasticism.  This is a series of essays by the man who gave a lifetime to considering and living that topic.

Thomas Merton writes about the contemplative life as a 'special dimension of inner discipline and experience, a certain integrity and fullness of personal development, which are not compatible with a purely external, alienated, busy-busy existence.  This does not mean that they are incompatible with action, with creative work, with dedicated love.  On the contrary, these all go together.  A certain depth of disciplined experience is a necessary ground for fruitful action'.

The quote below is from the introduction, written by Jean Leclercq O.S.B who gives us a wonderful insight into Merton, but also something each of us could consider in the light of how we walk out our own lives.

“If Merton was convinced that he had a mission it was because he knew that he had a message.  A message is not necessarily a scholarly lecture – and when Merton spoke from a platform he was not at his best.  He was not dealing, after all, with abstract knowledge, timeless science, a course which could be given again and again, unchanged, each year.  According to its etymology, which is the same as that of mission, a message is always composed of truths sent (missus) to a person, a group, a period in time, to satisfy an expectation and sometimes to answer a call to help.  Those who receive it may not even have understood their need, but even before they recognize it and are able to express it in words, they have been looking for that message and hoping that someone will come to help them and that God will send them a messenger.  A message is, therefore, something prophetic, mobile, running, even flying – St. Bernard used the word praevolare (to fly) – to fulfil man’s hopes.  They take it for granted that it’s author, or messenger, has had a glimpse of the solution for their problem; prophecy implies the gift of anticipation.  But each time the pace quickens, each time that anyone sees farther than the “man of the actual moment”, as Kierkengaard put it, there is bound to be opposition.  A message is something for which one must suffer and occasionally die.  Certainly a message cannot remain a personal possession:  definitely it must be “delivered”.“

Our capacity to be more of His message is expanded in the time spent walking and talking with the Lord, guided and instructed by His Word and His Spirit.  Out of this place He can send out the message to be delivered, whether it be in personal presence, letter, book, or spoken word.  May God grant us the grace and capacity to be the messengers of truths that  run and fly to fulfil man's hopes.

Teach us to pray .....

Some years ago, when I thought I knew a little about prayer, a very well-known prophetic man from overseas gave me a word "The Lord is going to teach you how to pray".  It took me by surprise and required some processing, but now with the wisdom of hindsight I realise it was one of the more significant words I've ever received.  I had led prayer meetings and taught on prayer here and overseas, prayed through this nation a couple of times, ministered constantly in prayer, and had begun to think I knew a thing or two.  Of even more concern was the fact that others had begun to think that too and had put me in a box.  A whole lot had become about works and special ability!

The outworking of that particular word has taken me down some strange paths and involved some very profound lessons.  Currently I am in the happy place of knowing how greatly prayer is about God and there is not a whole lot I actually need to know except Him. The process has made it constantly simpler day by day and year by year.  The bottom line seems to be that I just need to know that God is Who He says He is, and agree with what He says.

I think of John 15 as one of the greatest foundations to the life that is prayer as the Lord asks us to remain in Him and He in us, all summed up in John 15:16 & 17 You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last.  THEN the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  This is my command : Love each other.  If we abide in Love Himself we are much more likely to pray in accordance with what is in His heart!

The Message puts it this way: But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon.

A little passage from Thomas Merton's journal of November 13, 1965 summed it all up for me the other day - such simplicity and beauty.

"This morning when I was saying Prime under the pine trees at the front of the hermitage, I watched a wounded deer limping along in the field, one leg incapacitated.  I was terribly sad at this and began weeping bitterly.  Then something quite extraordinary happened.  I will never forget standing there weeping and looking at the deer standing still looking at me questioningly for a long time, a minute or so.  The deer bounded off without any sign of trouble."