Having the Right Answers

And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 

– Mark 8:29

And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And I answered, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said to me, "I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting."

– Acts 22:7-8

Why have you come here?

– Rule of St. Benedict

Today I went to the Abbey of Gethsemani with two dear friends. The Abbey is a place of quiet, a place of calm, and, yet, a place of the unexpected. Quiet, calm, unexpected. 

This trip coincides with many stresses in my life—mostly what's-gonna-happen-if...-type questions. So I went seeking quiet, calm, and the unexpected. 

The quiet was palpable upon our arrival. At Gethsemani, there's an audible quiet. I "heard" it as soon as I got out of the car. Once I got settled in, the quiet enveloped me, and it allowed prayer and reading to flow easily. Prayer and reading resonate with me and quickly get me centered and calmed. The quiet and calm came quite quickly.

The unexpected came quickly too. 

When I entered the church, there was a sign that said there'd be a Mass for the Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul. The Mass was unexpected. 

And the most unexpected moment from Mass was the homily. The homily centered on the questions asked to and by Peter and Paul. "Who do you say I am?" and "Why are you persecuting me?" These questions, said the priest, determine how you treat Jesus, how you treat your brothers and sisters. Our capacity to commit violence corresponds to our own answers to these questions. E.g., if we say that Jesus is a tribal jingoist, then we much more likely (a) to be tribal jingoists, but much more, we are likely (b) to participate in the marginalization of the other. If, on the other hand, we say that Jesus is the Christ who reconciled all things to God, then we are more likely to strive to embrace the other.

These two questions—"Who do you say I am?" and "Why are you persecuting me?"—made me think of another question: "Why have you come here?"

Thomas Merton says that we may have several reasons for finding ourselves in a monastery, but the most important reason revolves around seeking Jesus, "desiring that we may find Him and know Him, and thus come to live in Him and by Him" (Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality, 21). It strikes me that Jesus reveals himself in quiet, calm, and unexpected places—like a Cistercian monastery in rural Kentucky. And that's what happened; I rested in Jesus' care in Kentucky for a few hours today, where, through simple monastics, I gained a clearer understanding of who Jesus is, of how to avoid persecuting Jesus by resisting the urge to persecute my brothers and sisters, and of why I was there in the first place. 

Thanks be to God.