Answering the Call

"When Samuel went to sleep in his place, the Lord came and revealed his presence, calling out as before, 'Samuel, Samuel!' Samuel answered, 'Speak, for your servant is listening.'"
--1 Samuel 3:9-10

"Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, 'What are you looking for?'"
--John 1:38

I spent part of yesterday at the Abbey of Gethsemani for a meeting of the Lay Cistercians, a group of ordinary people who have affiliated themselves with the monastery and seek to live Cistercian values in their everyday lives. Two of the monks joined us for our discussion, and a senior brother who has lived at the Abbey for over 50 years inquired as to why we were drawn to this group and this place.

It's a question I have been pondering seriously since I first inquired about participating in the group last fall, and a question that the Cistercian Order itself has placed upon us also. Last summer representatives from Lay Cistercian groups around the world met with abbots from the order's monasteries at Huerta, Spain, to explore the role and place of lay organizations and our future relationship with the Order. Lay groups were challenged by the abbots to discern, in part, why we specifically want to affiliate with the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO, the Trappists' formal name), as opposed to some other group or movement.

Each of us at yesterday's meeting offered our own personal answers to this question. The answers were tentative, unsure. The truth is, we don't exactly know why we are there, why we keep coming back, though the common themes have to do with a special, spiritual connection to those men and that place, and how the tradition interacts with our own personal biographies.

Through the discussion, one thing that was revealed to me very clearly, and which I shared with the group, was that we were answering a calling. We are trying, in some way, to respond to a call that none of us fully understand. The anonymous author of the 14th-century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, says that not all people are called to a life of contemplation. In a deep sense, we do not choose to become contemplatives, God chooses us. God gives us a disposition and desire for contemplation. We may, of course, ignore this call, but those who come to the Abbey, and abbeys like it, are trying in some way to respond to this inner need that God has placed within us. We don't know why we are there or what God is working out in our lives through the connection we've made to the Cistercians, and perhaps that is okay. We are simply trying to line up in accordance with God's will for us. Perhaps the Holy Spirit itself is bringing us together in this way.

An even deeper question which emerged from our discussion was how is my life being transformed by my encounter with the Cistercian tradition? As our facilitator Michael, a founder of the group, pointed out, we don't come to the Lay Cistercians to do something, but to become something. All of our activities need to be reflected upon through the lens of whether we are indeed encountering God and allowing ourselves to be remade according to God's will.

I am a bit chastened and feel a sense of great awe and humility at the realization that I am not following this path simply because I like it, but because God has called me to it. There is a deep responsibility and sense of wonder embedded in that fact, and it heightens my concern that I am answering the call faithfully and allowing myself to be transformed by it. These are questions I'll ponder deeply, and intentionally, in the days ahead.