Two weekends ago I went on retreat to Pluscarden Abbey, the only medieval monastery still in use in the UK. It's set in beautiful countryside near the town of Elgin and is home to a community of Benedictine monks. Guests are free to come and go as they please, but are invited to join with the brothers in their times of worship.After arriving, we joined them for vespers at 5:30 and sat through 45 minutes of ritual, song and prayer that I’m guessing had changed very little in seven centuries. And although I didn't understand the Latin liturgy (and there's still a part of me that balks at ritual), it was a blessing to be there because the experience opened up for me a window into the mystery of God.
Incense hung around us like a cloud as the priest consecrated the bread and wine, and having done so, we kept silence together before God in that great room, for fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of absolute silence. It felt like the whole of heaven was holding its breath. It was an experience of the Numinous.
This Sunday's lectionary readings - Moses on Sinai and Christ's Transfiguration - can feel a bit problematic because of the whole son et lumiere thing. How do we, who have never and probably will never have that kind of experience, relate to what Moses and the disciples went through?
Answer - the very same light and sound is breaking through all the time in little ways if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. Gerard Manley Hopkins was spot on:
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil”
1 comment:
Isn't it amazing - and frustrating that there are mountain top aha experiences in our everyday if we can only see them but too often we miss them completely. I suppose that's what makes them all the more special when they do break through.
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