The Monastery - Moments of Grace
The journey to Christmas part two
The Christmas story begins with a journey, it could have started with the birth of Jesus, but there is something important about a journey. A journey helps set out the context and it creates a narrative filled with the important people, places and happenings that enrich and enliven the event being described.
My journey to the monastery began when I cancelled a trip to China for health reasons. I realised I was not only sick, but exhausted, and in need of spiritual sustenance. Also, as discussed in part one of this essay, Christmas is a time when absences make themselves acutely felt. The trip to the monastery was my pre-Christmas time for re-connecting with God, with myself and with those family members who have passed away that I miss so much, especially my beautiful son Fynn. If I don’t spend time to grieve, to connect with souls, to renew my spirit, to love and to pray, then I get caught out at Christmas and am overwhelmed by grief and emotions of sadness.
I began writing this on a train from my Galway home to Northern Ireland, where I will stay for 3 nights in a Benedictine Monastery nested in the lovely Mourne mountains. When I visit a monastery or another place that holds spiritual meaning, I like to travel on ‘a proper journey’ to get there. A proper journey for me means spending time cycling or walking, getting there under my own physical effort - I guess it makes the journey a bit of a pilgrimage. Often my travels include a train or boat journey, because these allow me to contemplate, to process, to see the world passing by, unlike the car where you have to be attentive to the road.
I will share nine moments of grace I experienced whilst on this journey and when in the monastery.
Grace
Grace means two things to me:
i) An unexpected gift from God
ii) An awakening of transcendent love
Often grace can only be experienced when we open ourselves to receive it.
Sometimes it is grace that opens us up, enabling us to receive and commune with the gift of transcendent love.
For those who don’t share a spiritual faith, which for many years I didn’t either, I believe it is possible to still experience grace; to recognise and feel those special moments of transcendence, perhaps when in sublime nature, or when witnessing something beautiful or remarkable, or touched by a deeply humane act of kindness or love.
When I look back on my life, moments of grace happened to me that I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.
Grace 1. Café joy
The grace on the journey began when I changed trains and found a small little Café, a New York Deli by Connelly station. I was ready for a late breakfast and ordered a fried egg sandwich. Well, this caused a bit of a stir, as the owner said to me in a bemused voice: “just one egg in a sandwich?” When I said yes he looked offended - he said “can I push you to have two eggs”? I said fine – laughter came from regular customers at another table. He then continued, “Can I put anything else in the sandwich - relish, cheese, lettuce?” When I agreed, he said strong or mild cheese, I replied strong and sat down. The owner, after much banter with other customers, served me a breakfast baguette to remember, one that had shifted from being an egg sandwich to a delicious meal served with pride and love.
The grace I experienced however, was not the baguette, but the joy of the café, the bonhomie, the camaraderie and being invited into an engaged community. My journey had begun.
Grace 2. I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Mathew 5.44)
The train from Dublin to Newry travelling from Eire to Northern Ireland follows the coast with lovely estuaries filled with many seabirds. I unloaded my yellow bike and had a 15-mile cycle to the monastery, passing over misty hills, through drizzling rain, before arriving at Rostrevor, the last small town before the climb upwards to the monastery set high in the valley. Strangers welcomed me with hello’s in their rich Northern Irish accents as I cycled past. A cyclist stopped and asked if I was alright, then looked at my bike and laughed, saying “You need to get some gears for these hills”, and a woman waved from across the road when I parked my bike and stopped for refreshments. A warmth passed through me as I journeyed towards the monastery. The Grace I experienced was being a stranger who was made welcome.
Grace 3. The laughing monk
Arriving at the monastery I felt exhausted, having cycled uphill whilst still on antibiotics for a chest infection and with my bag on my back. I reflected that perhaps this was the penance part of my journey. I arrived at the small monastery shop/reception and a monk and the receptionist were there, both smiling a warm welcome. The receptionist forgot the telephone number of the monk who was required to come and meet and greet visitors. The monk in his white habit reminded her of the number, she chuckled at her forgetfulness and he responded with a hearty laugh. A moment of grace came over me as I was welcomed with peace and joy, I felt at home already.
Grace 4. ‘Truly sons are a gift from the Lord’ Psalm 126
Grace is described in Christian terms as the unmerited love of God bestowed on us. I felt this when I attended my first prayer service at the monastery. The monks sing the Psalms in plainsong, and the first they sang was Psalm 126. I had just prayed for Fynn before the service began, and these words from the Psalm struck me:
Truly sons are a gift from the lord
Blessing from the fruits of the womb
This felt like a recognition, a communication from the spirit, from God that my prayers were heard.
Grace 5. Silent Listening
In the monastery there is silence. My room is silent. I wait in the church in silence. At meal times I ate in the monk’s enclosure. We wait in silence, there is a prayer, and we are served food by one of the monks. A book is read to us whilst we eat in silence. No polite exchanges, no how are you, no pass the salt, just silence, until we finish with a prayer and walk back to our rooms. The prayer cycle begins at 6.45 am and ends at 8 pm. Prayers are said six times a day, psalms are sung, and the rest of the time we spend in silence. The phone is off, and there is no radio in the rooms, just silence. Walking the grounds of the monastery, aside from the birdsong, silence.
The grace I experienced was that when in silence, I was able to listen; listen to my body speak, listen to my heartbeat, listen to the holy spirit, listen to God.
Grace 6. Simplicity
In the monastery, everything is paired down to simplicity. My call to book the retreat was done with the utmost simplicity, no chit-chat, no excess formalities, just a few seconds to arrange dates, arrival and leaving time. When I arrived at the monastery, the monk who showed me to my room and informed me of the routine did it with utmost simplicity. At mealtimes, a monk serves the food, meals are simple, and tables are cleared.
Simplicity is counter-intuitive in our busy, excessive world. The grace I experienced was to discover again how simplicity opens up a space for our spirituality to come alive. It reminds us of the clutter we become attached to in the material world that blocks our journey into our spiritual lives.
Grace 7. Radical Equality
At the end of my first day at the monastery, I became aware of a new freedom - the freedom from holding an identity. In our everyday lives, we have roles in our families and workplaces, we are fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters. I am Dr Simon Western, an author, a person with a reputation, someone who receives projections from others, and expectations…. but not in the monastery.
In the monastery I don’t speak to anybody, I don’t share any information, I don’t get asked anything, I am just me. I was struck by how this non-identity enabled my shoulders to drop, and my body to relax. Not to have to live up to any ideas or ideals people may have about me, or that I have about myself, was a huge relief. I guess if you’re very attached to your identity, this could also become a problem. I was not required to perform any identity, it was just me before the monks and one other guest. There were no questions, no expectations, no weight. The grace I experienced was that I could be free from the burdens and baggage that I carry, (without realising I was carrying them), and most importantly to be reminded that we are all radically equal before God.
Grace 8. The stars and the natural world
I awoke before the alarm at 5.50 am, said a prayer, washed and dressed, then went outside into the dark morning, and wow. The stars shone so brightly against the dark morning sky. The plough was the clearest I had seen it in years, its tail pointing towards the north star. Somehow I was surprised at the stars in the morning, (my associations were that stars come out at night). There are no unnatural lights as we were far from the city, and the stars shone without human interference. Seeing the wonder of the galaxy makes our world seem smaller and more fragile. I was reminded of the earthrise picture taken from space, showing the immense beauty and the vulnerability of planet Earth.
The next day I walked in the Mourne Mountains with a friend for the afternoon and we were blessed with a cold sunlit day, with white clouds hugging the mountain, and mist rising from the forest.
The grace experienced through being in, and being part of nature, came into my life as yet another form of prayer, another way of listening to the work of the spirit.
Grace 9. Luke 2.9 ‘and the brightness of God shone round about them’
My train home was cancelled due to a rail strike on the Friday, which meant I had to leave the monastery on Thursday afternoon. This was both a shame and a gift. My children’s Carol Service was on Friday morning, and this meant I could attend. I had been wondering about travelling home early as my children really wanted me to be there, so now I was given a gift… ‘go Simon!’
When my children were young I shared with them that when the sunbeams shone down through the clouds, it was my son Fynn saying hello to them from the heavens. When I left the monastery after lunch on a greyish afternoon, as I turned onto the road from the driveway, I was literally blinded by a white light. The sun was a pure white ball that lit up the valley for a few minutes so brightly that I had to shield my eyes….. Fynn and God were with me…. That was truly a moment of Grace.
Such a beautiful essay. Thank you, Simon.