Silent Ripples

Over Christmas, my family and I watched the documentary, Into Great Silence, a film about a Carthusian monastery in the French Alps considered to be one of the most aesthetic monasteries in the world.

I had not thought much of the value of monastic life before I watched the film except to realize that St. Therese's existence created ripples throughout the world and she never stepped foot out of her convent during her adult life.

But the film helped me to realize that even if no one ever knows about the existence of a single monk in monasteries around the world, the power of their prayer helps to bring praise and glory to God and through this, positive change to the world. The hiddenness of their gift, the anonymity of their existence makes their sacrifice that much more astounding.

During the film, which is mostly silent, there is a part that shows the faces of several of the monks, resting on each of them for a couple minutes. Their faces are each unique and beautiful, some joyful, some serious, but there is also something that is the same about each of their faces. It gave me the distinct feeling that, in some sense, I was looking into God's eyes.

David gave me a book for Christmas called A Monk's Alphabet written in 2006 by a Benedictine monk. The book, as the title suggests, has different short meditations for each letter in the alphabet. The book has given me an appreciation for the value of monastic life and when I read some of the things that the monk writes about, I realize how wonderful it is that God calls some people to live solely for Him, to spend their time appreciating and thinking about the wonders of the world He created. It gives me hope that there are men and women who have the faith to devote their lives to God in a way that is so radical and so beautiful.

Some passages from the book:

Hawk: There are hawks floating in the wind today. I love to follow their easy flight. I trained binoculars on one and decided that I would watch it for at least five minutes without taking my eyes off. On and on, round and round, gently up and gently down - looking, hunting. Beautiful.

Three: Around three concepts, I want to try to summarize a lot. Creation ex nihilio: from nothing with no qualities whatsoever, God creates the universe. Before, there was only God; after there is God and all that he created. Sin: A path toward a different nothingness, a nothingness with the quality of a rupture of relationship, a break with truth, moral culpability. Redemption: the eternal God descends to the bottommost part of this sinful nothingness and from that nothing, ex nihilio, recreates the world: new heavens and earth and a new human being.

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