“Now, in order to find this delightful solitude it is not necessary to withdraw into a desert and live in a cave; you can find it in your home and in the midst of your family.” (“Finding Peace in the Storm”, Dan Burke).
The great Saints knew how to be alone in the world.
The greatest of the Saint left their homes and their families – either permanently or at times for a period of time. These people knew how to live in solitude.
Saint Charbel lived in a hermitage on top of an isolated mountain. He lived along=e for decades. He ate food that he grew from the land – without ever eating meat. He did not keep company with others. And spent his days in meditation and contemplation of God. When he travelled, if ever he travelled past his mother’s village, he stopped himself from visiting her so as to offer a greater sacrifice to God. And so, what little opportunity for company he may have had, he deliberately restrained himself so that he would live a life of solitude.
Saint Therese of Lisieux left her beloved father at the age of fifteen to enter the order of the Carmelites. And that was no easy thing for her to do. Although she had older sisters in that order, they deliberately avoided her and made sure to distance themselves from her. And they did this as a sacrifice so as to practice greater mortification in atonement of sins. And as a result of this Saint Therese of Lisieux (and her siblings) lived in solitude – even within the community of the Carmelites…
And the Blessed Virgin lived a solitary life. Venerable Maria Agreda, a medieval Spanish mystic wrote of her revelations of the Blessed Virgin, that the Blessed Virgin and Christ decided to spend increasingly long periods of time without intimacy and closeness in terms of speaking and company. And they did this as an additional mortification. And because of their great love for each other the cost of such a sacrifice as that was very great indeed. In fact the pain of that deliberate withdrawal from each other was perhaps the most terrible pain that one could imagine. It was as though the two were mourning the loss of their loved one without ever experiencing the death of that person. And they endured that willingly throughout their lives.
In “Finding Peace in the Storm”, Dan Burke writes, “Now, in order to find this delightful solitude it is not necessary to withdraw into a desert and live in a cave; you can find it in your home and in the midst of your family. Busy yourself with the outside world only in as far as the duties of your state, obedience, or charity require, and you will be living in that solitude that best accords with your circumstances and that God requires of you.”
And I have been thinking about that today as I have been thinking about what it is that God asks of me. For it seems that God has such a plan for me, if only I could sit in solitude and listen to it…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
The
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