BBC newsnight led last evening with a moving account of the young US soldiers newly returned from Iraq who have marched to New Orleans - a penitential pilgrimage in which they mourned for what they had done in the name of George Bush, in the name of Tony Blair - and in the name of us.
I received a touching letter from a lady this morning who had picked up my book on silent prayer, Sounding the Silence, in the Worth Abbey bookshop. She told me her story: when, in 2001, her husband of 43 years died of cancer ‘I felt my faith died with him’. She describes her feeling of numbness until after two to three years she resumed her practice of silent prayer.
She uses my readings in the book to help her prayer - but it is still a struggle. ‘I am content that I shall always be a beginner - I used to think I was climbing a ladder.’
I replied with Dom Cyril’s words: ‘prayer, of its very nature, is always a beginning. Our best approach is that of a beginner.’ And there speaks a Carthusian who has been at it for over forty years!
The sad thing is that when we most need our faith, it seems to desert us. Rather like being left behind on the Titanic when all the lifeboats have pulled away. And yet this good lady perservered; and eventually, through the prayer of silence, she has come back to herself. For in prayer we encounter our Maker; and he is continually intent upon restoring and caring for us in our human poverty.
Ignatius of Antioch writes: Nothing is hidden from the Lord. Even our secrets are close to him. So as we go about our day, let us remember always that he dwells in us.
I am duly chastened by my somewhat cynical piece last week about The Times informing us that the Carthusians of Parkminster, after nine centuries, had changed their habit of solitude by welcoming retreatants to their cloister: a simple correction will appear in tomorrow’s paper.
It is now my turn to offer a correction: The Times were prompt to listen and only too ready to set their record straight. And this exchange was conducted with every traditional courtesy that I well remember from my days at Printing House Square.
Each Monday during Lent, the chapter room at Wells Cathedral fills up just after evensong. As many as fifty people gather and pray together in Silence. This initiative is led by Jean Moore and supported by the Precentor, Canon Patrick Woodhouse. All are welcome, from whatever denomination or faith.
‘Be still and know that I am your God’ was the invitation last Monday:
the ensuing silence was reportedly ‘most powerful’.
With the sudden realisation that Lent is upon us, The Times last Saturday thoughtfully provided a checklist of monasteries and retreat houses where one can stay for a while in search of silence. The first named was St Hugh’s Charterhouse, Parkminster; an attractive colour photo showed the famous cloister (the longest in Europe) with a white cowled monk disappearing halfway down its length.
The inviting copy read: ‘Carthusian monastery. Monks pray alone for 4-5 hours daily. Guests may attend Mass, Latin Vespers and night prayer. Walks discouraged. Food/wine delicious . . . ‘ We are asked to ‘apply in writing’.
Don’t bother, gentle readers of The Times (former journal of record): this brief invitation is riddled with gross error. Vespers are no longer said in Latin; Vespers are Night Prayer; guests are NOT admitted to Parkminster on retreat - if they were no women would be in their number; and, pace Brother Patrick, the food is nourishing rather than ‘good’ as in The Good Food Guide. Finally, there is no wine (apart from altar wine) at St Hugh’s; the monk’s drink their own home-made cider.
I telephoned the Editor’s office to alert them of this gaffe. And I was asked if I wanted to ‘make a complaint’. I replied in the negative, I merely wished to tell them that they had printed almost as many errors in an allegedly informative paragraph as words used. ‘Oh, the person who deals with mistakes is on holiday this week . . .’
Forget it, madam, I was only trying to help.
PS Brother Simon (who will field any readers’ letters of application) commented:
‘No one believes what is written in the newspaper, so there shouldn’t be too much to worry about.’