Whose wounds do we bear? Do we bear the wounds of Christ? Or does Christ bear our wounds?
When I was a very young monk, just 23 and in the Monastery for only a year, we had a reading one day at our midday office by Thomas Merton that blind-sighted me and created a great deal of inner turmoil. I can’t recall what the reading said, but when the office was over I knew that I had to leave. I was very angry because I thought all those years of believing I had a monastic vocation was a lie. So I went up to my room and was going to pack and leave.
When I arrived at my room in what was called the ‘the snorers dorm’ at the time, I became very sleepy and decided to lie down for a nap before I packed. How I could be so agitated and angry and still feel an overwhelming desire to sleep was something I was wondering about even as my head hit the pillow. It was then that I had a dream that kept me in the Monastery. It was a short dream, but very powerful. In the dream Thomas Merton came to me and presented to me this question:
“Mark, do you now what a monk is.” I responded: “No I don’t”. He smiled at me and said in a very matter of fact tone: “Mark, a monk is a man who clings to God even when he is in despair”. I awoke then, and I knew that I was to stay. Though the importance of the message did not really register on such a young mind….yet within a few months I got some insight into it. I did understand that the dream pointed to the reality of God’s faithfulness in all of my struggles, even the worst of them. It was just I had not experienced ‘despair’ before that time.
A short time later I entered into a journey that made the dream come alive. It also made me understand the importance of clinging to God through trust and prayer. While I was still 23 my inner state changed, how and why I have some understanding but the intensity of what I had to go though was at first terrifying. I do believe that this is a common path that is followed by humanity. If I had known that this would happen to me in the monastery, I doubt I would have entered. However that is probably true of any vocation, what we have to face is hidden from us, the reality would be too grim.
The only way to describe it is to say that my heart, my inner space became a dark pit of a pain whose nature I still can’t quite understand, or for that matter even begin to describe. Yet it was there, it would not leave and there was nothing that I could do about it…..except pray. For I soon learned that if I ran from it in some mad plan to alleviate it, to self medicate myself, was a waste of time. In fact it only made it worse. It was like tearing off the protective scab over a deep wound. So I would just sit and stare inwardly and pray to a God who seemed truly absent. Yet the dream stayed with me, “Cling to God, even in despair”. So I clung and God slowly brought about healing. I suppose if I had left the monastery, I would have dealt with this wound with the salve of addiction. Say sexual addiction, or drugs, food etc. I would say that my main weakness is food.
It was prayer that kept me on the road towards healing, though it was far from a straight shot. I would run, find it useless and return to prayer, to the Lord, and over the years healing has come, and is in fact still taking place. I still have not figured out just exactly why I have this inner wound, but that is OK. One of the good things about ageing is that I don’t have to fix it, or figure it out, but to pray, trust, and live one day at a time. In prayer I keep the doors open to life and to embrace all that is within me.
My joy, my love, my anger and lust, my inner rages, are stepping stones to prayer. It is also my connection with all others, for my path while unique is not that much different from most people I believe. So in my prayer, I understand that when I am healed, or being healed, for it is a life long journey, I grow in my desire to bring all others with me. In this I have learned what ‘The priesthood of the faithful “means. Christ Jesus is one with us in all of human experiences, so it is also true that the deeper we go into the ‘Mind of Christ’ the more we understand our oneness with all of humanity and when I pray I feel this deep connection.
Self knowledge does not mean that I have myself figured out. It does mean however that I come face to face with my radical freedom as well as my struggle to grow in freedom every day. This releases me from the burden of judging others, as well as trying to figure them out. How can I? For the greatest mystery to me, is well, myself and my life long dance with God. This dance can be a waltz, or a polka, or sometimes it is like being in a wrestling match… but there it is…prayer is not always about finding peace, or gentle love, but about embracing the inner conflict and sitting with them, praying with them and growing in understanding of my union with the rest of humanity.
Whose wounds do we bear? Do we bear the wounds of Christ? Or does Christ bear our wounds? When St. Paul talked about Christ Jesus living in him, it was not some abstract theological principle but a lived reality. Christ Jesus is the immanence of God. In prayer we become ever more deeply one with this reality, until slowly our hearts become the “Heart of Christ”, our minds “The Mind of Christ”, our feet and hands His as well. Prayer allows this to happen, so we can bring forth thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold.
It happens slowly for most of us. How it happens, well it is the seed of grace, once planted God does the watering and the harvesting. We are called to pray, to love and to minister to each other. Not to judge or to criticize. The greatest self wounding I do to myself is when I judge in ways that I have no right to do. In prayer I learn to see my reflection in others and to not make others suffer because of that.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
