Talk Given to the Oblates of Prinknash Abbey by Abbot Francis Baird

Talk given to the Oblates of Prinknash Abbey by Abbot Francis Baird Friday 8TH June 2012

Before I joined Prinknash, when I worked in London I joined the (TA) Territorial Army, The London Rifle Brigade as it was then, and I remember one of the older regulars telling us, “never stand if you can sit and never sit if you can lie down”. He had seen some active service and there were times when one just did not know when next you would be able to get some rest. This advice came to mind when I was thinking about putting this talk together on prayer. I was not going to suggest that you should kneel or even lie down rather than sit to listen to what I have to say but rather, wouldn’t it be far better to pray rather than simply listen to a talk on prayer and so should we not return to the chapel and pray there rather than just sit and listen here? Apart from the times of the Divine Office, the Work of God when the Community should all be present, St. Benedict tells his monks that they should simply go into the Oratory and pray silently as the Holy Spirit inspires them. And so it might all depend on whether or not one feels called and inspired by the Holy Spirit to pray in that way. If one isn’t, then perhaps it might be better to stay and listen to something that may help one to understand and appreciate our vocation to prayer and so encourage one to pray the better. Only afterwards will you know whether or not you’ve chosen the better part!

So this morning I want to reflect on some thoughts about contemplative and active prayer. The religious person, whether they be a monk or a nun or an oblate is first and foremost a person of prayer. In fact St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars went so far as to say that it was the vocation of mankind to pray and to love. But what sort of prayer should we be considering? How should we be praying? St. Paul tells us that as Christians we should be praying all the times. How is this possible?

When we consider the contemplative and active life, so often the story of Martha and Mary is referred to, and we are reminded of Jesus’ words: “Mary has chosen the better part” and can come to believe that if we ever take Martha’s part we are at best second class citizens in the Kingdom of Heaven! But we should never forget that both Mary and Martha are honoured as saints. Both have reached the state of perfection to which they have been called through God’s grace. The perfection, the holiness, to which we are all called, for we are all called to be saints.

I think that there are two things we need to remind ourselves of here. Firstly, that within each and every one of us there is both a Martha and a Mary. We are not simply one or the other. And secondly, we also need to remember that there was a third member of the Bethany Family, namely Lazarus, the friend for whom Jesus wept and whom he raised from the dead after being in the tomb for four days. He must have been very close to Jesus, yet little is actually said about him in the Gospels. But concerning our subject of prayer, he has an important part to play, for according to St. Bernard, one can find not just two, but three vocations in the monastic, in the religious life, that of Lazarus, Martha and Mary. Lazarus is seen as the penitent, Martha represents the active and devoted servant of the monastic household, and Mary is seen as the contemplative.

Let us first consider Lazarus. When Jesus arrived at Bethany after hearing of his friend’s sickness, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. He was really and truly dead. He could do absolutely nothing for himself. He was in fact literally falling apart, disintegrating. His only hope was in Jesus. He was utterly dependant on someone else, on some external force if he was to receive his life back and be raised from the dead. All Lazarus could do was to recognise and accept his situation and humbly wait in hope for Jesus to call him out of the tomb. And we know that when that call came, Lazarus heard Jesus and in faith and love came out of the tomb to meet his Lord and Saviour. That, one could say then, was his calling, his vocation, and it is our vocation too? Not literally, in the same way as Lazarus was called back from the dead to life in this world but we too are called out of the tomb, out of the grave by Christ to new life in him. Or to express it in another way, we should consider ourselves, in the words of St Paul, to be dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus. (Rom 6:11) That is the direction in which we should be moving. That is our calling, our aim. That is whom we should be constantly listening for and responding to, the call of the Father through his beloved Son, Jesus in the Holy Spirit. But before we get there, before we hear and respond perfectly, before we are completely dead to sin, we are still at least in part dead in sin and so, having one foot, or at least part of us, in the grave as it were, not fully alive for God in Christ. And this is where humble recognition of the state of ourselves comes into focus, enabling us to be both penitent and utterly reliant on God’s merciful love and forgiveness to raise us up. We have to come to realise that we are at least in part dead if we are going to be able to allow Jesus to raise us up. Like Lazarus in the tomb, we can do nothing for ourselves but trustingly wait on God. And when he calls, answer in faith and love. This then can be seen as a prerequisite condition for prayer, the right disposition of mind and heart, which we raise up to God, so he can raise us to new life in him. This then is the Lazarus in us.

Now what of Martha and Mary?

Well, St. Bernard goes on to say that although there were three vocations to be found in the monastic life, it was Mary who had chosen the “better part”, and there was no reason for her to envy Martha and leave her contemplation, unasked, to share in the serving and washing up or whatever chores Martha was doing. The portion of Mary is by nature preferable to the other two, that of Martha and Lazarus, and superior to them. A point made by St. Bernard, not simply because Jesus himself had said as much but possibly because it was not unknown for Mary to envy Martha, for the Contemplative to envy the Active person, for Mary’s portion was not always the one desired and sought after by most people. We all like to do a good job, whatever it might be, and get satisfaction out of work well done. If we have something concrete to show for our labours, we are more likely to take pleasure in it than if we have nothing whatever to display. However, St. Bernard gets round the problem of any possible envy between Martha and Mary by saying that they are sisters and should dwell in the same house in peace. They supplement one another. But in actual fact, as already mentioned, true monastic and religious perfection consists above all in the union of all three vocations; that of the penitent, the active worker (especially and above all, St. Bernard says, in the care of souls) and the contemplative.

However, when St. Bernard speaks of the care of souls, he is referring to the duty of instructing and guiding the brethren within the monastic cloister rather than any apostolic work outside, for he saw the contemplative life as the normal life for the monk, and so it is the contemplative life which should be desired and preferred. Activity should be accepted but not sought. But in the end, as I have already mentioned the perfection of the monastic life the religious life, the life of the Oblate, is found in the union of Martha, Mary and Lazarus in the one person.

Just before I end, I want to reflect for a moment on the joint aspects of the contemplative and the active sides of the religious life and prayer, as seen through the eyes of Peter of Celles, a monastic writer of the Middle Ages who, though he preferred the silence and meditation of the monastic cloister, was called by God to be not only an Abbot but also a Bishop. And though Peter experienced in himself the conflict between action and contemplation, it did not concern or upset him, for example, on the one hand he pleaded with Pope Alexander III on behalf of the Abbot of Clairvaux who wanted to refuse being made a bishop, by telling the Pope quite frankly that it would be a shame to deprive this monk of the “better part,” the contemplative life, and throw him headlong into the storms of the world, while at the same time he saw that there are situations when one must face and accept responsibility and the distractions of one’s office, one such situation being when he helped a friend who had recently been made a cardinal, to deal with distracting thoughts.

He talks of the “sabbath” of contemplation, in which the soul rests in God and God works in the soul, that purity of heart which is the reward for the labour of asceticism, a labour which is seen as the “active life”. That is the life of discipline, penance, mortification, which is absolutely necessary, for he says that without virtue there can be no real and lasting contemplation. Without the labour of discipline there can be no rest in love. But when asceticism has purified and liberated the inner man (or woman) then, Peter says, God works in us while we rest in him. And what is more this rest, in its effect shines forth as more productive than any work.

And so again we see how Mary and Martha and Lazarus, all have their vital part to play in our spiritual lives, in our life of prayer, if we are to become complete, whole and truly holy persons.