Quiet moments, worship God

Fred Schaeffer, OFS

Quiet moments... hard to find these days. I had no air conditioning in my car fixed today (2004). For over a year I had been hemming and hawing about what to do, as someone told me it could cost up to $800. Finally, a neighbor told me of a local garage where the owner was known to be honest and reliable. So today, I went even though I'm going through a post-hurricane cold. So is half the town, I think. It turned out that the air conditioner was OK, it just needed Freon. $50 to fix. I promptly rode out to a further-away supermarket where the prices were better to save some money. I didn't used to go to that store because when the car sits in an open parking lot in Florida, it gets super hot inside. But now with the air working again... I sang my praises to God while I was driving. I was like a little kid, I was so happy!

Quiet moments. Hurricanes are not events that give one quiet moments. There's too much anxiety and people get sick because their immune defenses go low when the body is tired and exhausted. But it occurred to me that we're all in the same boat (and I don't mean this as a pun, because some could have, and still can use a boat to get around... low-lying areas are still flooded). What I mean is that we all experienced instant poverty... none of us had electricity, few had fresh water until the semi's came from FEMA to hand out potable water and ice. And even now, there are still folks without electricity, water, etc. It is a tremendous relief to get our "comfort" back and I'll never complain about bad conditions again. As I recall all we went through, I think with sadness to the people of Haiti, whose country is still mostly flooded and where conditions are not likely to come to any degree of comfort anytime soon. Sadness also leads to a quiet moment... we worship God for all He has given us, and we know we can only trust God in the painful moments in life. And we pray that we and everyone else may get through the difficult moments in life.

(2020) Coronavirus is a little like a hurricane. It takes people by storm, not a storm with wind and rain, but a storm of upheaval nonetheless. I've not had Coronavirus but I've had other medical conditions that took me by storm. A year ago, I ended up in the hospital and rehab for a total of 7 weeks with Pneumonia and other problems, It took many months before I came back to normal. This is one reason that I'm being very careful about distancing, hand-washing, etc. In fact, I have been out of the house only once in the past 7 weeks, sort of reminds me of the hospital stay. Last year, from the time I came out of treatment until mid-December I was coughing incessantly and constantly. Not a pleasant time. I prayed a lot as I still do. One day, December 13, 2019, the Lord healed me. The cough stopped as sudden as it had begun, and my lungs cleared and I've been feeling fine ever since. Praise the Lord for his love and healing.

I keep returning to a time in my distant past when I was in religious life (abt. 1996-2002). When I first wrote this tome, it was only a few years ago. This was, overall, a tremendous experience and in so many ways I miss it. I miss the stillness and the peacefulness. One of the Orders I was with, in Cincinnati, Ohio, insisted that a certain afternoon of the week we go take a long walk in the forest across the street, no matter what the weather, for exercise. I hated to walk on those slippery trails when it rained or snowed but walk I did. In wintertime, dressed in a warm parka, with boots, I slipped and slid through the forest at Mt. Airy, and it was there that I experienced a number of quiet moments with the Lord. I remember one day, a little bit of sun shone through the trees and nearly "spotlighted" a branch of a tree and there I saw a bird sitting quietly (it was probably freezing as I was!) and I thought of the passage in Holy Scripture where Jesus refers to providing shelter for a sparrow... knowing that if He did so for the sparrow, He surely would do so for us, since we are created in His image. That realization made me stand still and let me mind toy with that thought and Jesus was close to my heart in this wonderful moment of quiet and grace.

And, a few years later, also with a bird... I was walking through a portion of the Harvard Forest Preserve which abuts various portions of Petersham, in Massachusetts, in spring time. As I very quietly came to an intersection in the woods, I spotted some movement ... and it was an adult-male Blackburnian Warbler. And for those of you who know something about birds, that particular species is very beautiful in spring plumage. I stood still, hoping it had not seen me. Even if it had, it appeared not to notice. I praised God in prayer during that wonderfully quiet moment where I was alone with Him admiring His Creation.

Quiet moments come more often these days. Now that I am a member of the laity again, that is to say, not a religious but an ordinary Catholic (although I've made a Vow of Obedience and Chastity, and I am also a professed member of the Secular Franciscan Order), I try to keep my nose clean. That is to say, I live what some people might call a boring life. But to me it isn't boring and it isn't dull. That's because I see the goodness in people around me even though it gets harder with time, sometimes. I'm not a wallflower, I mean I've had 3-years in military service in the 60's and I've been around, travelled here and there in Europe and in many areas of the USA. I've met all sorts of people, so I am somewhat used to rough language and moral decay that one finds in big city living - but I don't want any of that. I want to be above that. I never forget that all this comes from suffering. Every day, almost, people ask me to pray for them, and many people are deeply hurting. Yet, despite that I have quiet moments of joy because I thank God daily, hourly that I do not live in oppression and that my life is now relatively peaceful.

Living alone, which is a necessity for almost anyone who has made a Vow of Chastity, who is not married, and who is not a member of a religious order, is very difficult at times, particularly when one gets older. We all like a companion, be it a friend, husband or wife. But my daily partner is Jesus, and St. Francis. In prayer and meditation they are with me, and they are present here. Those are my quiet moments of joy where I worship God. It takes effort, but it is, in my view, well worth it. You may have heard the expression (particularly in the past and in religious circles) where nuns will refer to Jesus being their "spouse." That's a very difficult notion to explain because it takes the intimacy in a spiritual prayer life that is mostly present in cloisters and monasteries (on an individual basis, of course) to come to this realization. One might not refer to Jesus as spouse in the case of men, there is an equal relationship, a very intimate relationship of spiritual life of the soul, between Jesus and those who love Him unconditionally. Gender has absolutely nothing to do with it.

In the quiet moments of this spiritual relationship which is probably to most people of today very counter-cultural, there is great peace and joy. Now. Let's take this a step further. In order to experience these quiet moments, it is not necessary to have pronounced Vows at all. You can have this peace and you can get to heaven with all people who love God and their neighbors as they love themselves. And what does it mean to love God? It means to answer to God's love, who so much loved us as to give us Jesus as our Savior, Jesus who gave His life for us. If God then loves us so much, we should try to love each other, because then God will be in our hearts and God's love will be perfect in our hearts.

Many people long for the quiet moments in their life where they can feel the joy that Jesus gives us through His love. People ask me to pray for them because they are living with someone out of wedlock, they can't get along with their mate because they don't feel anything for one another... they are perhaps on drugs or heavy drinkers... that's not life... that's death. That's decay. Sure I can pray for you, and I do... but you, the person asking to be prayed for, must do something too. You must make an effort to change your life. Move, get another job, or something but get away from something you absolutely do not like to do. Pray strongly about making changes.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R., God rest his soul, a good Franciscan friar with much sociological and psychological experience and knowledge by training, related a story of a man who was on crack... and he wanted to get off it in the worst way... so on the first day of the rest of his life, he went without the drug for one hour, and then the next day for two, and another day for longer. And with an iron will he quit being a drug user and is now completely healed. As Fr. Benedict says "don't tell me it can't be done," with God's help everything is possible. Right? Well, your living conditions in your own private hell, that can change too. But you have to take the first step. You need to want to change so bad that you will do everything possible to clean up your lifestyle and to return to God. No, that isn't easy. But it can be done. It takes personal and daily conversion.

May you find the peace and joy that God provides to all people. He is there to guide us. In the quiet moments you will then have with Him, you will experience great peace and joy and you will, as I do, worship God for his greatness and His love. May your heart be aflame with love for God. Amen.

Thursday, September 23, 2004, rev. 4/23/2020 (Feastday of Bl. Giles of Assisi, First Order friar, third companion of St. Francis, d. 1262)

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