Editor’s note: Read part 1 here and part 2 here.
With everything that has been mentioned thus far, one could sincerely feel overwhelmed and even discouraged about entering more deeply into the solitude of one’s heart, especially after just considering the martyrdom that it entails. Regardless of one’s interior response, there is a very deep consolation hidden beneath the apparent struggle involved. What could that consolation be? It is a reminder that our experience of life and of God are important, but they are not absolute. Hence, there is always so much more to life and to God then merely our experience.
When Jesus says, “Come to me…take my yoke upon you…learn from me…and you will find rest for yourselves,” (Matthew 11:28-30) Jesus is ultimately inviting us into this solitude of the heart, regardless of what our current experience of life and of God may be. It is here in the solitude of one’s heart where the rest that Jesus promises is available and it is here where the intimacy with God that we all long for exists.
In fact, the solitude of the heart is the only place where this can occur.
There is a part in all of us that hopes that this rest that Jesus promises us implies that there will be a time in my life when everyone loves and appreciates me or when everything externally is good. We may be inclined to think that if I just pray hard enough or acquire a high degree of virtue at some point, I will be physically well rested, successful in my career, and psychologically at peace and even things like prayer and loving others won’t be so difficult. In all my years of religious life and priesthood, I have never met such a person. The few holy people I have met in life possessed few or in some cases, none of these characteristics. The reason, of course, is because the promises of Jesus are greater than this world. Therefore, we cannot measure spiritual realities by worldly categories. God’s grace provides us with some rest externally, yet in this broken and fallen world that we live in, the fullness of God’s rest and peace externally will always be lacking.
Herein lies a fact about life that most of us do not like; God usually doesn’t take away our problems and struggles. Sometimes, he does, and we can and even should ask him to remove certain difficulties in our life. If God chooses to do so, then we thank and praise him for it. However, I have noticed in my own life that often when one cross is removed very quickly another cross appears. Usually, this new cross tends to be more difficult than the one I was asking God to remove, and I sometimes find myself wanting to trade the new cross in my life for the one I was praying to get rid of!
As confusing as this might be to our hearts and minds, this does not mean that our life is a problem. Nor does it mean that God is a problem and that to experience peace and rest I must first figure out both my life and God first. I remember thinking as a young religious that the greatest obstacles in my spiritual life were certain exterior realities, i.e., the people and personalities I lived with, the work I was involved in, and the location where I was living. I spent much time and energy trying to eradicate those external realities and by doing so neglected the deeper interior truth of God inviting me more deeply into the solitude of my heart to live more fully with him. To be clear, there are times in our life where we need to address certain exterior realities, however the point here is that the struggles all of us face in life are not obstacles to this rest that Jesus promises us. What it does mean, however, is that we must go deeper. We must go deeper than our own experience, then what our human understanding allows, what exterior realities would like us to believe, and what our feelings and emotions are telling us.
Ultimately, we must go into this solitude of our own hearts, where we are alone with God. Here in this solitude, one doesn’t ignore the external realities and the people of our life. Rather, we choose to approach them and see them from a much deeper and fuller perspective that only this solitude of the heart can bring. It is here in this sacred space where deep prayer, true love, and godly service are born, and it is only here where Jesus’s words, not only in the passage we have been reflecting on, but all his words in the Gospels finds their ultimate fulfillment.
Jesus himself tells us in the Gospel, “The kingdom of God is in your midst,” (Luke 17:21). Sometimes it is translated, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Our lives and the world that we live in, though created good (Genesis 1:25), will never experience the fullness of God’s peace and rest. However, we must not be left to conclude that our life then in this world will be one of constant tension and frustration. To the degree in which we have entered the solitude of our own hearts and dwell there with God, we will begin to experience God’s peace, rest and the joy that is the fruit of his presence.
The more we live from this deep interior place, the less the exterior things of life can affect us.
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Image courtesy Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal .
