Solitude is seeking God and it is for this reason that it is pursued. As the spiritual journey of the solitary progresses, the meaning and role of solitude in the salvation of the seeker becomes manifest as well as how the whole endeavor works towards the salvation of others.
Solitude is a calling. God who calls makes solitude bear fruit.
The solitary who finds God in solitude is able to satisfy their heart and remain in communion with God. This divine companionship can make up for the absence of human companions, while in the presence of community—whether two or more persons—the solitary can love the other in and through the heart of God without suffering the need for human companionship. How is this possible? Because God can satisfy the human heart entirely, his presence can make up for the absence of human community and in the companionship of others God’s presence allows the solitary to relate to others in and through God.
Human beings are social by nature, so that in beatitude everyone will be with God in the community of the other angels and saints. They will no longer feel the anguish of their inescapably solitary condition. They will be one with God first, one with the angels and saints second.
Solitude is the most profound intimacy and union with God. It is this solitude that enables us to live in community with others at the level of prayer and union with God.
Always to live with God in our hearts is all that we only desire. It is we who turn away from God. We are the authors of our own unhappiness.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-grace-of-solitude_17.html
The solitary vocation, already very difficult, is best lived in community. Human beings are social by nature so that they require the support of a like-minded spiritual community for their psychological health.
In reality, we never really journey alone because we are all mystically joined. Only the damned are forever separated from God by their own free will.
Carthusian prayer isn’t supposed to be lived in secular society. Separated from the world and enclosed, Carthusian spirituality is a special type of religious vocation that is realized only under exceptional conditions.
Still, the example of Carthusian life puts into practice important principles of the spiritual life that apply to all Christians—the indispensability of developing an interior relationship with God in solitary and silent prayer, and the helpfulness, indeed, necessity even of implementing organization and structure in conducting one’s spiritual life in order to develop, maintain, grow, and flourish in our loving relationship with the mysterious and Almighty God.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2024/01/year-of-prayer-2024.html
At Calabria Saint Bruno writes to Raoul le Verd, provost of Reims:
“I am living in the wilderness of Calabria far removed from habitation. There are some brethren with me, some of whom are very well educated and they are keeping assiduous watch for their Lord, so as to open to him at once when he knocks. I could never even begin to tell you how charming and pleasant it is. The temperatures are mild, the air is healthful; a broad plain, delightful to behold, stretches between the mountains along their entire length, bursting with fragrant meadows and flowery fields. One could hardly describe the impression made by the gently rolling hills on all sides, with their cool and shady glens tucked away, and such an abundance of refreshing springs, brooks and streams. Besides all this, there are verdant gardens and all sorts of fruit-bearing trees.
“Yet why dwell on such things as these? The man of true insight has other delights, far more useful and attractive, because divine. It is true, though that our rather feeble nature is renewed and finds new life in such perspectives, wearied by its spiritual pursuits and austere mode of life. It is like a bow, which soon wears out and runs the risk of becoming useless, if it is kept continually taut.
“In any case, what benefits and divine exaltation the silence and solitude of the desert hold in store for those who love it, only those who have experienced it can know.
“For here men of strong will can enter into themselves and remain there as much as they like, diligently cultivating the seeds of virtue and eating the fruits of paradise with joy.
“Here they can acquire the eye that wounds the Bridegroom with love, by the limpidity of its gaze, and whose purity allows them to see God himself.
“Here they can observe a busy leisure and rest in quiet activity.
“Here also God crowns his athletes for their stern struggle with the hoped-for reward: a peace unknown to the world and joy in the Holy Spirit.
“Such a way of life is exemplified by Rachel, who was preferred by Jacob for her beauty, even though she bore fewer children than Leah, with her less penetrating eyes. Contemplation, to be sure has fewer offspring than does action, and yet Joseph and Benjamin were the favourites of their father. This life is the best part chosen by Mary, never to be taken away from her.”
https://chartreux.org/en/texts/bruno-raoul-le-verd.php
—“Letter of saint Bruno to his friend Raoul-le-Verd,” The Carthusian Order
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/07/placeholder-3-of-4.html
Public domain photo
ReplyDeleteGonzalinho
PICO IYER ON SOLITUDE
ReplyDeleteSolitude is the state in which you feel least alone. But you have to spend time by yourself to remember that. I’ve passed the last 48 hours in this silent cell in a hermitage high above the blue silences of Big Sur, and I’ve never felt so richly companioned. That rabbit scuffling through the undergrowth in my private garden, the blue jay that just alighted on my fence: They’re closer to me than my thoughts. Friends I haven’t seen for years – friends I’ll never see again – come back to me here as they never could in a crowded room. Walls disappear as soon as I engage the world in an undistracted heart-to-heart.
Why seek out solitude? Only so I can have something happy and different – fresh – to share with my friends. Otherwise I’m just sleepwalking through my days, chit-chatting about nothing. It’s only by stepping away from the world that I recall what I most love in it and how best to give back something rich and real.
These words – of course – come to you from solitude. The truest words always do. If I’m clacking away in a jampacked airport, if someone else is bustling all around me, I can’t begin to hear what’s essential. It’s only in silence that something wiser or deeper than I am has space enough to speak.
So, too – we all know – with the music that we love: even at its warmest and most festive, the thunder of a Beethoven symphony, the rapturous celebrations of Handel, come into being only through one soul hearing something transforming with interference from no one else.
You can respond to it best if you’re alone, too. Indeed, that’s what every exchange of music is about: by giving a piece all your being, you feel less alone than you would otherwise. Each musician with her own instrument, every audience member in his own space. Two solitudes touch and the world explodes into song.
https://www.soundstage.laphil.com/solitude/
—Pico Iyer, “Solitude,” LA Phil, October 27, 2020
Pico Iyer is one of the best contemporary essayists I have come across ever. He combines with almost effortless, seductive sincerity the depth and lyricism so necessary to engage the selective reader. It is why, among other reasons, he is compelling. Here he speaks about solitude, one among various plushly meditative topics by which over the years he has corralled a highly appreciative international audience.
Gonzalinho