From the hermitage
By sister alies therese
In England I was blessed to know an Anglican priest, Robert Llewelyn, who for many years was the chaplain at the Julian Shrine in Norwich. I lived some twenty miles away and went there frequently. Of his several books, a favorite is Prayer and Contemplation (SLG Press, Oxford, 1977). In chapter seven, he considers contemplation and the cloud of forgetting – some help to me.

As we age forgetfulness shows up … names, things, why I’m doing this, where was I going? etc. These seem quite negative and often cause us to wonder where we are on the dementia continuum.

I heard about a psychiatrist speaking before a group of seniors about dementia. Key to his rather clinical explanations was this delightful indicator. He asked how many had lost their keys. Most raised their hands. Then he asked how many found them? Most raised their hands. That is not dementia he told them. This is: did you know what to do with the keys when you found them? This caused some laughter and he laughed too. Holy forgetting is not quite the same!
This holy forgetting that Robert writes about is from The Cloud of Unknowing an old 14th century text, written by the author to a young disciple who wanted training in prayer. These ‘clouds’ help us focus on God in prayer. For example, one of the most important things to put under this cloud of forgetting is past sins, confessed and forgiven. Yes, they come into our minds … that distracts us. In Chapter 31 of The Cloud:
“…sins (new or old) try to cover them with the thick cloud of forgetting as though they had never been committed by you or anyone else …”

Robert then goes on to remind us that he is not talking about repression (nor was the author of The Cloud) … that is dangerous. “That,” he says, “is a compulsory and involuntary forgetting or experience of memories which the mind has found too painful to retain in conscious thought.” These are mental health issues to be sorted and healed in other ways.

Robert is concerned rather with trying to heal involuntary distractions (and even voluntary ones), so that we are able to pray, focused on God. “We are,” he says, “poor apart from God’s enabling strength and it may well be that this awareness is our deepest need.” (page 80)

Without this strength we can do nothing. Our goal is to ultimately behold God and in our daily life we see the many wonderful, unique, and marvelous works of God … but not quite God. What we want, Robert reminds us, is to come to the prayer of the Holy Spirit who “gives us the ‘best’ prayer, whether seen as being for God’s glory or as a meeting of our need for deliverance: twin aspects of prayer that must be held together.”

“But once our sights,” he concludes, “have been truly set on God, with the desire and intention that in God’s grace they will remain so, we need not fear these invaders of our imagination. What now becomes necessary is to pay them no attention.” When this is practiced, we find healing. “Try to forget created things, let them go … sit in the darkness as long as it takes … go on longing after the God you love, never giving up.”

Mark Lowry, Christian humorist, musician and writer noted this: “I look forward … but the memories can be greater.” He talks of how his PawPaw couldn’t remember much near his end … “except the Sunday dinners on the ground and singing in the male quartet. He sat and looked forward to the coming of the Lord … where memories and plans are the same. And I’m sure,” he quips, “over the door into heaven there is a sign: No Wheelchairs, Hospital Beds, or Bedpans Allowed!” Great things to forget!

(Sister alies therese is a canonically vowed hermit with days formed around prayer and writing.)

On Ordinary Times
By Lucia A. Silecchia
On New Year’s Eve, I found myself in a favorite small town donut shop in Pennsylvania. While many may crave more lavish year end celebrations, for me it is good company, hot coffee and a fresh donut bursting with coconut custard that make a sweet way to bid farewell to one year and greet the next.

The cashier at the donut shop was handing out calendars that day. The one she gave me will find its way into my office where, for twelve months, it will keep me constantly craving donuts.

In coffee shops, banks, grocery stores, churches, repair shops and stationary stores everywhere, calendars are scattered at the start of a new year. Perhaps, the paper calendar is in decline a bit as many live by online schedules and the ever-present daily data from smart phones. Yet, I hope that the paper calendar endures. It is a tangible sign of the gift of time. The calendars we hold in our hands, tack on our walls, keep on our desks, or toss in piles of papers are simple reminders to entrust the new year to God.

The pages of our calendars may already have notes about what is expected to happen in 2022. The pages are preprinted with holidays, observances, and the starts and ends of seasons. Calendars of a religious nature highlight the feast days and liturgical seasons that mark our walk through this life on our way to the eternal.

We also mark on the pages those events that we ourselves plan for 2022. We record routine obligations, vacation plans, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and the special events and celebrations that we hope will lie ahead in the months to come.

Yet, most of the days of the calendar hold the unknown because the futures held in those days are still hidden. They are in the hands of God and will stay safely there as they unfold.

Right now, when I look at the donut shop calendar, I do not know which days will bring unexpected joys. I cannot predict what days will record meetings with students who have painful struggles or dinners with friends to share exciting news or newfound fears.

I see blank pages now where new adventures will take place and days that will be spent with those I love. I know that many meetings will be added to the schedule – and with uncertainty I wonder whether I will have the wisdom or insight to make the most of them.

I cannot tell now if there will be medical appointments on any of those days when I or someone I love receives bad news. I cannot tell which days will go well, and which will leave me yearning for the chance to re-do something I did or said.

I do not yet know if I will use the days of this new year wisely and keep enough time for prayer and contemplation. Somehow, for me, that which is most important never gets scheduled at all.

I cannot tell if there are days ahead when my schedule includes commitments I should have declined – or fails to include commitments I should have made. I do not know which days I will have an opportunity to say or do something that helps another along life’s path, or whether I will take or waste that opportunity.

I do not know which days might hold first meetings with those who may become lifelong friends. I do not know which days I might hold a newborn seeing the world for the first time or clasp the hand of an elder seeing the world for the last time.

Most profoundly, I do not know if, on any of the days on my calendar, I will ever mark a small cross – something my mother always did on her calendar when someone she loved passed from this life. I do not know if there will be a day on which my own entries themselves will stop because I cannot presume that I will have any day beyond today.
Perhaps when you look at your calendar you sense the same “unknown-ness” that I do. It fills me with hope and a deep sense of how much I need to entrust the 365 days on my donut shop calendar to God.

For all of us, the dark (but lengthening!) days of January may be the right time to briefly hold our calendars in our hands or look at them hanging on our walls and pray that the days they mark will hold only what is good, holy and healthy for body and spirit. It is a chance to pray, together, that we can be good and faithful stewards of the time we are given, that we will give more than we receive and that even the most ordinary days will be traveled with reverence for how extraordinary the gift of days is. With these hopes is a prayer that God will strengthen, help, guide and bless all of us embarking on our new days of ordinary time.

Happy New Year! May God bless you and yours.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. “On Ordinary Times” is a biweekly column reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)