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Intimacy with God |
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written
by daw84 / 10.24.2005 |
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| Silence and Belief |
1 of 1 |
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Assignment |
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To the young man, entering the cloister at Santi Quattro Coronati meant an exit from the real world frantically consumed with personal successes. Instantly, he was impressed by the sanctity of the refuge. Completely cordoned off from the world, those who lived here were utterly set apart from Rome. They could be in the midst of a peaceful, mountain pasture, a barren wasteland, a destroyed war zone, or a busy city, and everything about the place would be exactly the same. The silence and peace were incredible in the absolute isolation.
The man’s temporary isolation sent an inexplicable peace over his soul beginning with the head, relaxing the shoulders from the pressures of life, running down his lower back, and finally shooting a warmth, like that of hot chocolate on a frigid winter morning, down to the tips of his toes. Inside the surreal experience, he encountered God unlike he had in a very long time. He had experienced His presence before, in intense church worship services raising his hands to the Lord or in prayer as he wept crying out to His Savior for His own salvation or the salvation of others, but here, it was as if he was in the warm intimate embrace of his Heavenly Father.
A reminder of the intimacy of that first embrace came later in a cathedral in Florence. Sitting in the silent chapel, he saw a nun, dressed modestly in light blue robes, falling on her face in silence before the Lord. As she touched her forehead tenderly to her large, well-used, red Bible, she poured out her heart to God in deeper ways than even a married couple could know in their most intimate conversations with one another. It was as if she had turned her heart absolutely inside out and was allowing God to see her, experience her, and know her in ways beyond all comprehension. In the silent, revelation of all that she was, she truly knew God.
It is no coincidence that in the Bible, knowing is frequently equated to having sexual relations with another. To have sex is to become one flesh, just as to truly know is to become one in mind. The nuns of the cloister know how to be one with God so much so that the luxuries of the real world, even one such as the ability to speak, absolutely pale in comparison to their intimate relationship with Him. In Florence, the young man observed the true extend of their sacrifice, being able to see the beautifully simple cloister surrounded by plain rooms only through a locked iron gate completely segregating those inside from all the world had to offer.
In the midst of the relaxed feeling of isolation, however, the man began to wrestle with the greater implications of such a place. Devoted to silence, prayer, and simplicity, these women new God and prayed for others in ways that would be impossible in the “real” world. But, what is knowledge of God if it does not translate into knowing other people? The same Bible that had challenged him to “be still and know that I am God,” also commanded him to be, “In the world but not of the world.” How “in the world” were those who lived caged off from the problems of everything surrounding them? Their state enabled them to know God, but not to put into action the love for others He asked them to have. So often, they lived in blissful ignorance.
Sitting in the cloister, he was reminded of the greatest commandment given by Jesus. When confronted with the question, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Jesus’ response was simply, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.” The challenge of Jesus is to love God as those in the silence of the cloister and also to love others as the one serving all those he comes in contact with. There enlies the central concept and the greatest challenge of Christianity.
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