January 6 - The Tent of Meeting

We saw yesterday how closely the three Benedictine vows mirror our requisite devotion as Christians: we obey the leading of the Holy Spirit, we abide in the “house” provided for us, which is Christ Jesus our Lord, and we strive as long as we live to keep changing into the likeness of Jesus.


The intriguing difference between us and live-in monastics is that they leave everything and everyone else behind and go to a place where they can be as certain as it is possible to be that they will have time and have structure and discipline in their lives so that Jesus will be the focus of every day and the goal of every heart.


It MUST be true that we can have that, too, here in Cor Unum! The Word of God admonishes us to abide in Christ and to seek God with our whole hearts. Now, how shall we go about it?


This is two-pronged. Many will say, “Oh, I pray all day. I pray for parking spaces and I thank God for the beautiful weather and I pray before I go to the dentist.” Let us not deride that at all. Let us recognize that this is how friends live as friends, in the closest imaginable manner, common and unassuming and instant in communication.


There is the one little thing: God, our Great Friend, is also the Lord God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, the One by Whom All Things are Sustained, in Whom we live and move and have our being. Glory and honor, blessing and power and praise are His.


Not merely friendship. Friendship is the high goal. Moses was a friend of God, and God called Abraham His Friend. See how they worshiped! See how Abraham lived a sacrificial life, even unto the sacrifice of his son! See how Moses went apart into the Tent of Meeting, there to worship and adore and bow before and hear and exalt the King Who Reigns on High.


Monastics . . . both they and we . . . have seized this vision because of the truth of it, and we hold on until we have found our own sanctuary. For some, it’s a chair in a quiet corner, and for some it is literally in a closet. For all of us, it is the monastery of the heart, but of the heart that will seek the Lord God in silence, stillness, devotion, worship, seeking, listening, adoring, and interceding, beyond the bounds of Best Friends. We learn to wait upon the Lord, and to enter His Presence, worshiping at the footstool of the Throne of Grace, here in Cor Unum.


"Bathed in Light"
Abbatial Photo