A CREATIVE TENSION

 Yesterday, Friday, our Fr. Max gave a fine homily on the feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great, and has graciously allowed me to pass it on to you as this week's post. I hope you enjoy it.

Homily for the Feast of St. Gregory the Great

By Fr. Maximilian Buoncore, OSB

Gregory c. 540 – 604)

In the Gospel reading today we heard Jesus say to his disciples, “. . .let the greatest among you be as the youngest, and the leader as the servant.” This perfectly characterizes Pope St. Gregory the Great. He was given the title, “the Great,” but what he was greatest at was his exercise of authority with utmost humility. And this is because his heart was dwelling in heaven through contemplation, even as his mind and body remained on earth engaged in the business of the world. He was truly an evangelical person.

 St. Gregory, a senator’s son, was serving as the prefect of Rome before he was 30. After five years in office he resigned, having a strong attraction to contemplative life. He then founded six monasteries on his Sicilian estate, and became a Benedictine monk in his own home at Rome. But the Church would not allow him to stay in the cloister. Ordained a priest, St. Gregory became one of the pope's seven deacons, and also served six years in the East as papal representative in Constantinople. He was recalled to become abbot, but at the age of 50 was elected pope by the clergy and people of Rome. Pope Gregory made very clear his preference for the cloister over the very taxing administrative and pastoral responsibilities that came with magisterial authority. But what the life of St. Gregory gives us an example of is how contemplation and action work together in creative spiritual tension. This creative tension is relevant both inside the cloister and outside the cloister.

I have learned this first hand, first as a Trappist monk and now as a Benedictine monk. When I left my career as an engineer in 1989 to enter the monastic cloister, I, being a “Martha” type - given to the activity of doing and accomplishing, I was expecting that it would be easy in the monastic cloister to just switch gears, as it were, to become immersed in a life of contemplation.

Of course, I was greatly surprised to find out that, even in the cloister, I had to struggle greatly with the tension between contemplation and action. An abbot is always happy to have a “Martha” type like myself in the cloister. I gladly accepted all of the jobs that the abbot gave me. I simultaneously had the jobs of working in the tailor shop, the infirmary, the library, the bakery, the kitchen, and landscaping. I was frequently called into the abbot’s office for corrections about working at times when I should be doing lectio divina and meditation. But, with time, I learned that the phenomena of work and prayer - of contemplation and action - are not only not in opposition to one another as if mutually exclusive, but they must of necessity both be present for true spiritual growth. They must be in creative tension.

 

Being a scientist, I like to use metaphors from science. I like to compare work and prayer to the phenomenon of matter and energy. As we know from Einstein’s theory of relativity, matter and energy are different manifestations of - two ways of actuating one underlying dynamic reality. When that underlying reality is actuated as an active force that can drive and induce changes in what we call matter, we call it energy. When it is manifested as particulate corporeality that is the subject of change and being driven by forces, we then call it matter. Prayer and work can be conceived in a similar way. They are two manifestations, or actuations, of the same underlying phenomenon: the life force that flows from the image and likeness of God in us human beings - that is, love, charity. Both prayer and work, properly oriented, put us in relationship with God - indeed, are a manifestation of, or actuation of, that very relationship that exists in us because of our being created in his image and likeness.

Prayer is the actuation of the image and likeness that emphasizes the deeply personal, mental and spiritual communication of the divine life force of love within, while work - engaged in as service to others - is the actuation of the image and likeness of God in us which emphasizes the intercommunication of persons in imitation of the Trinity, which is what our work is when it is true evangelical service. You’ve heard me say often, when our heart dwells in heaven through prayer, our work becomes true service of love. Prayer and work must come together to make truly evangelical intercommunication of persons in true service of love.

When our work and prayer, taken together, become true actuations of the image and likeness of God in us, it is then that we are truly evangelical persons. When we become truly evangelical persons, the tension between action and contemplation - the tension between work and prayer - becomes a creative tension that fosters continual spiritual growth in us as spiritual persons. [Both prayer and work - contemplation and action - must be present.]

You have also heard me quote many times something that my grandfather said to me (as we sat gazing at his distillery in his basement): “Work does not become true service until it is distilled in prayer.” But it can also be said that prayer does not become truly the work of God until it is embodied in works of charity. While prayer guarantees that our work is truly service by keeping us oriented to our highest aim or goal, which is full communion of love with other human beings in God, the labor of service guarantees the active intercommunication of persons demanded by love.

Prayer makes labor an act of love, and therefore true service, while true service makes our prayer true contemplation. Our prayer will not be truly oriented to God - and therefore not true contemplation - if it is not oriented to others through the action of charity. As St. John puts it (1 John 4): “He who does not love his brother, does not know God, for God is love.” [Caritas transforms our labora humana into labora divina, and labora divina transforms our ora humana into ora divina, resulting in contemplatio vera.] Prayer guarantees that every work that we do is not merely a good work but a God-work, and doing God-work guarantees true contemplation, and contemplation transforms all our activity from merely a means of accomplishing some good end, into a way of being – a way of living our highest calling as servants – as evangelical persons, as human beings. And this is what we witness in the highest degree in St. Gregory the Great.