"...Escape from your everyday business for a short while..."

Yesterday at the Office of Readings the second selection was chosen in honor of the saint of the day St. Francis Xavier, great Jesuit missionary to India and Japan in the 16th century. Had it not been his feast we would have heard one of the most beautiful readings of the Advent season, a selection from the Proslogion by St. Anselm,  12th century bishop of Canterbury. This is a message for all of us not just communities of contemplative nuns.

Insignificant mortal, escape from your everyday business for a short while, hide yourself, for a time, from your disturbing thoughts. Cast aside, now, your burdensome cares, and be less concerned about your tasks and labors. Yield room for some little time to God; and rest for a little time in him. Enter the inner chamber of your mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God, and such as can aid you in seeking him; close your door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! speak now to God, saying, I seek your face; your face, Lord, will I seek (Psalms xxvii. 8). And come you now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how it may seek you, where and how it may find you...

But alas! wretched that I am, one of the sons of Eve, far removed from God! What have I undertaken? What have I accomplished? Whither was I striving? How far have I come? To what did I aspire? Amid what thoughts am I sighing? I sought blessings, and lo! confusion. I strove toward God, and I stumbled on myself. I sought calm in privacy, and I found tribulation and grief, in my inmost thoughts. I wished to smile in the joy of my mind, and I am compelled to frown by the sorrow of my heart. Gladness was hoped for, and lo! a source of frequent sighs!

And you too, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord, do you forget us; how long do you turn your face from us? When will you look upon us, and hear us? When will you enlighten our eyes, and show us your face? When will you restore yourself to us? Look upon us, Lord; hear us, enlighten us, reveal yourself to us. Restore yourself to us, that it may be well with us, --yourself, without whom it is so ill with us. Pity our toilings and strivings toward you since we can do nothing without you. You do invite us; do you help us. I beseech you, O Lord, that I may not lose hope in sighs, but may breathe anew in hope...

Lord, in hunger I began to seek you; I beseech you that I may not cease to hunger for you. In hunger I have come to you; let me not go unfed. I have come in poverty to the Rich, in misery to the Compassionate; let me not return empty and despised...

Be it mine to look up to your light, even from afar, even from the depths. Teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me, when I seek you, for I cannot seek you, except you teach me, nor find you, except you reveal yourself. Let me seek you in desiring you and desire you in seeking you, find you in loving you and love you in finding you...

Perhaps there will a moment today for that desiring, that seeking, that loving. Remember, all of that flows both ways. God desires, seeks, and loves. Can we find the time to be at God's disposal?