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Story and Comments
One of the best known of the Desert Fathers of fourth-century Egypt, Saint Sarapion the Sindonite, traveled on pilgrimage to Rome. Here, Saint Sarapion was told of a celebrated recluse, a woman who lived in one small room, never going out. Skeptical about her way of life, for he was himself a great wanderer, Sarapion visited her and asked, “Why are you sitting here?” She replied, “I am not sitting, I am on a journey.”
“‘I am not sitting, I am on a journey.’ Every Christian may apply these words to himself or herself. To be a Christian is to be a traveler. Our situation, say the Greek Fathers, is like that of the Israelite people in the desert of Sinai: we live in tents, not houses, for spiritually we are always on the move. We are, on a journey through the inward space of the heart, a journey not measured by the hours of our watch or the days of the calendar, for it is a journey out of time into eternity." (Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, SVS Press).
Silence and Solitude are much too underrated in the Christian Church. Such time is not simply a time of inactivity. Outwardly, it appears one is still, motionless. However, the pilgrimage continues in the closet of interior prayer. Possibly, the most important movement in the Christian journey is the movement within the Silence and Aloneness. While we easily see external motions, there are deep, interior movements that are as real and are even more essential to the ongoing Christian pilgrimage. The outer aspects of the pilgrimage can only rightly be lived, rejoiced in, and shared with other persons when joined with the pulsations of the Spirit that take place deep within the heart of hearts during Silence and Solitude.
Spiritual Exercise
Reflect on the following words from Thomas Merton and seek to discern how they apply to your life.
To be alone by being part of the universe—fitting in completely to an environment of woods and silence and peace. Everything you do becomes a unity and a prayer. Unity within and without. Unity with all living things—without effort or contention. My silence is part of the whole world’s silence and builds the temple of God without the noise of hammers.
—A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals, Ed. Jonathan Montaldo.
December 29 and January 28, 1953
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