February 27 – Fasting, Part II

Drawing near . . . sounds monastic . . . IS monastic.

Here is what cloistered men and women know that other sometimes overlook: for every drawing near, there is always a turning away.

For them it is a life enclosed, away from more than just family reunions and television. They live without rancor or political furor or the insidious ties that most of the Western world has to Hollywood and Madison Avenue. They learn quickly that they must live without gossip or slander. They have turned away from many things to which others are more umbilically connected than perhaps they realize.

During this season of fasting from and fasting toward, of drawing near, let us not stumble because we forget to forsake. Every drawing near preempts that thing that we would otherwise be doing, thinking, pursuing or enjoying.

Now we are the monastics of Cor Unum. Now we acknowledge that we cannot add fifteen minutes of prayer unless we take it out of our social networking hour, or the time we spend with a good magazine.

Let us observe today, let us look, let us see, where our fast will fail, will be suffocated, unless we cut through the tall grass of the things we have been doing in the jungle of “not enough time.”

There are still exactly forty days, beginning tomorrow morning, until Easter Sunday . . . a season . . . is there not a reason . . . for drawing near in a special way, for the pleasure of the Lord’s company or for the sake of someone who has never known Him. Let us be sure we are ready and willing to FORSAKE what we may that we may DRAW NEAR … because we can, here in Cor Unum, the monastery of the heart.



"Come . . . Away"
Abbatial Photo