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Bishop Braxton

Stay With Us Lord - “From Gethsemani to Onitsha: A Spiritual Journal”
By Bishop Edward K. Braxton

Part One

During the past two months, I have had the opportunity to share the story of the Catholic Church in Southern Illinois in two very different Catholic communities: the first was the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani Trappist Monastery outside of Bardstown in Trappist, Kentucky; and the second was the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha in Nigeria. Both communities of faith were eager to hear about the strong Catholic faith of our people and the many generous efforts that many individuals and groups are making to build up and strengthen the Church and to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ amid the many spiritual and material challenges that we face today. They were particularly interested in my Pastoral Letter, “We Are His Witnesses: Our Common Spirit-Filled Mission as the Church in Southern Illinois.” It was very interesting for me to learn that both the monks and the Nigerian Catholics recognized the important role of “common meaning,” shared experiences, understandings, judgments, and commitments in their own lives of faith.

I first went to Gethsemani in search of Father Thomas Merton (1915-1968), the renowned Trappist author in 1967. Armed with my well marked copy of his autobiography, “The Seven Storey Mountain,” I was a curious seminarian. I had the privilege of meeting him and I have returned for my annual week-long retreat almost every year. Gethsemani is a Cistercian monastery: it traces it origins back to St. Benedict of Nursia, the 5th century Father of Western Monasticism, and to the “New” Monastery in Citeaux, France which rejuvenated monastic life in 1098. The monks devote themselves to prayer, work, community life, and lectio divina (the slow quiet reading of Sacred Scripture, the Church Fathers, Church documents and other spiritual reading) under the leadership of Abbot Damien Thompson, O.S.C.O. Currently, there are sixty monks in the community and six novices. Their backgrounds range from scientists and businessmen to farmers and widowed grandfathers.

I went on retreat this year in late June. Entering the grounds of Gethsemani (especially, the restricted “monastic enclosure”) is to enter a timeless river of silence. The inscription above the entrance states “God Alone.” While on retreat I entered into the rhythm of monastic prayer (Vigils (3:15 a.m.), Lauds (5:45 a.m.), Eucharist (6:15 a.m.), Terce (7:30 a.m.), Sext (12:15 p.m.), None (2:15 p.m.), Vespers (5:30 p.m.), Compline (7:30 p.m.) Lights Out (8:15 p.m.). This schedule, without any intrusions from the outside world, makes it easy to focus on the centrality of prayer and union with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, in the Word of God, and in the community. I sometimes joined the monks in their work making fruitcake, cheese and fudge. (Benedict’s Rule says monks must be self-sufficient.)

However, I spent most of my time in prayer, study, spiritual direction, walking in the vast countryside (praying the rosary and the Stations of the Cross) and writing in my journal. I always make time for extended periods of silent waiting and listening in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, an annual review of life confession, a complete examination of conscience, a study of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, and an interior preparation for death. Since I know the community well, I appreciated the opportunity to spend time at Thomas Merton’s hermitage, where he lived his final years as a hermit. I always spend time at his grave — a simple cross in the monastic cemetery marked “Fr. Louis” (his monastic name).

Chanting the Liturgy of the Hours (Vigils to Compline) with the monks is a central part of the retreat for me. I take my place in the choir stalls next to the Abbot as the cantor leads us in a beautiful, slow, quiet, effortless musical meditation on the words of the psalms. Our changing postures: standing, sitting, kneeling, bowing, and our measured breathing transform our sung prayer into a sacred mantra. The differing lights shining through the yellow, gold, tan, beige, brown and white of the renovated monastic chapel’s abstract stained glass windows throughout the day are like a series of impressionist paintings.

One night after Compline instead of retiring, one of the monks took me out to view the heavens through the monastery telescope. What sights we beheld! A very clear view of Jupiter with five of its 38 moons, Saturn with its dramatic rings, Vega, a giant blue-white star, Antares, a massive red-orange star, the Great Hercules Cluster of half of a million stars, several exploding stars, and, of course, our own moon, lit by the distant sun as bright as day, with details of craters so clear you felt you could reach out and touch them. It was an overwhelming encounter with the incomprehensible vastness of the universe; the minuscule smallness of Earth, and the seeming “insignificance” of man. When I returned to the darkened chapel to chant Vigils, I prayed with a new intensity, “Sun and moon bless the Lord; stars of the night bless the Lord. Praise and exalt Him above all forever!”

At the invitation of the Abbot, I break the Great Silence of my retreat every year to address the monastic community in the Chapter Room. We gather after I serve as the Principal Celebrant and homilist at the Sunday Community Mass (attended by a large group of visitors). At the end of my address the community assured me that I, my family (especially my mother, Evelyn Braxton), my friends, and all the Christian Faithful of the Diocese of Belleville would be remembered often in their prayers.

A silent retreat at Gethsemani, “far from the madding crowd,” is an indescribable experience. It is completely restful and refreshing; yet it is not a vacation. Some might think that it is an “escape” from the hard challenges of the “real world” into an “unreal world.” However, in truth, nothing is more real. In these encounters with silence, I am flooded with the peace at the center, the inner serenity, the hidden gift of Divine Love that sustains me in tranquility amid the sound and fury of everyday life.
As Thomas Merton has written:

“There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.”