Mission Possible

Somehow I keep finding and purchasing Catholic out-of-print books. I stick to some authors who are considered spiritual masters of the interior life. I also specialize in victim souls and mystics. Yesterday I branched into Gerard Manley Hopkins. I'm also a big fan of Fr. Raoul Plus and Pere Garrigou-Lagrange. Lately, too, I've collected some Francois Mauriac.

A few weeks ago I thought it had to do with needing hope and comfort. I don't get the books read, of course. They just accumulate about me in piles, and I do read what I can. It feels like how a squirrel must feel, scurrying about this autumn collecting nuts for the winter. I will need many winters in order to read all these books.

Why do I continue to purchase them? It seems I am insatiable for these outstanding tomes of Catholic wisdom and spiritual guidance. Last night prudence came to the fore; I packed up three books, two the memoirs of little-known victim souls, too pricey for me to justify. I kept one expensive book, though, as it has more content of the victim soul's interior journey.

Again, why do I continue to purchase these books? Before last Wednesday evening's talk by a major player in the Catholic who-who field, I thought it was becoming an unhealthy obsession to buy these books. Now I wonder otherwise. A young woman, doctorate and nationally-known speaker on Catholic women's issues, mostly of the JPII writings, spoke locally. She was flown in from Washington, D.C. and gave an informal but information-loaded talk about the role of Catholic women today. The kernel came to this: Catholic women today have many choices--from marrying and having many children to working to being enactors in all segments of society. I use the term "actualization" of women, although that term was not mentioned. The speaker gave historical views of women and how culture has impacted and freed women to be able to be solid in their faith yet also active in the world about.

In my recent spate of seeking information about maidservants, I was thrilled when she mentioned servants and handmaids and how she considered them different one from another, but in reality, they are both humble slaves, people of service. She mentioned Judith, her strength and using womanly wiles but also her brains to undo Holofernes' plans. She cut off his head. I thrilled in thinking interiorly of the great masterpiece of art which depicts Judith--with her maidservant helping her with Holofernes' decapitated head. Ah, the maidservant is right in there! Yet, she wasn't mentioned in this talk on the role of women.

After the lecture, I asked a question privately. "What, if any, comment or observation had she made in all of her 12 years of research, study, and speaking, regarding how the active and rather exterior roles of women has affected the contemplative life?" While the young, rather famous speaker digested my question, I added that I could not find many women--or men, as the contemplative life is not gender specific, as souls are simply souls--interested or inclined anymore to a life of contemplation. In fact, what I find in parish life today are who-who's and do-do's. People who are somebodies and people who are somebodies doing things. Yes, good things, good people, and necessary those who do.

The woman looked at me and said that she hadn't thought of it so much, but that yes, it does seem as if the contemplative life has suffered a decline.

It seems to me that it is not only in a decline but an endangered mode of being.

And what a treasure is at risk of being lost!

The deepening sense of loss tears at my mind and soul while the old, out-of-print Catholic books fill my mind with much-needed wisdom and guidance, and salve my soul with hope and foundation. Yet it is true that I do not read all that I have accumulated; I read them, book by book, and it could take more than my lifetime to finish. What is important is to practice what I read. Yes, to live the contemplative life, to be it, omnia pro Deo!

The thought develops and grows: Is this my mission? Am I to utilize the means available today, the mode of communication through internet writing, to rescusitate the contemplative life for any woman or man or child who is thus inclined or desirous? Am I to build awareness of the contemplative life within the Catholic Church so that people at least have a choice--a choice to include the interior life as part of their growth as humans, as souls?

Typically, historically, women's intuitive nature has inclined them to contemplation. I'll not here list the many mystics, victim souls, and saints who lived highly developed and matured interior lives, who fanned the fervant flames of contemplation. Yet today's Church seems to be heralding the exterior lives of those who are active doers: busy, busy, busy worker bees. Where are the drones and queens?

Without them--oh so true--no honey will be found.

Seems as if today the drones and queens relegate themselves for want of other ideas, as hermits (either out in the boonties or hidden within the city) or fly to the cloistered orders, dwindling hives yet firm in their contemplative desires. Or, some Catholic contemplative wanna-be's drift into new age ideologies and form their own interior communes, or confuse contemplation with a merged spirituality, replete with strange fashion and form.

Surely there can be a purpose here: to live the contemplative life without being driven to odd extremes, to encourage the spiritual journey of the soul as a bee buzzing to the hive, unhindered by the distractions, yet very much a regular bee among bees. It is the inspiring hope that the contemplative life will revive in all souls, that it be "do-able", after all.