Reflections about Contemplative Apostolic Life
Calling within a Calling: Part Two
Part Two: Qu’Appelle House of Prayer as Contemplative Apostolic Ministry
The Qu’Appelle House of Prayer began in September, 1995. While being an authentic missionary ministry, it also was, and continues to be, a personal quest to explore what it can mean to be both apostolic and contemplative. It is surprising to me that after nearly 25 years, I continue to discover that the more intensely the contemplative life is lived, the more missionary this ministry in turn becomes, most especially as mission to the most abandoned, who are at the outer edges of church and societal life. The Mission Statement of OMI Lacombe Canada speaks to this: “… we stand with the voiceless, hearing and making heard their cry … finding ourselves among the marginalized of our community, our society and our church, taking our place among the poor and powerless …” The underlying glue for this prophetic courageous stance is perhaps most of all rooted in contemplative spirituality.
Over time I am slowly coming to perceive that which Hermit Marie Coombs and Oblate Kelly Nemeck (who died on Sept. 11, 2014) came to discover, to live and to teach during more than 40 years of contemplative eremitical life at the Oblate House of Prayer, Lebh Shomea. It is this: contemplation is the immediate and direct communion in love with God and with all creation in God. Contemplation entails being loved by Christ Jesus and loving him in return, Heart to heart, Person to person. What we see and love in God, we see and love in others, in creation. Loving and being loved by the Christ leads to compassionate seeing and loving in others, in creation – one person, one tree, one sunrise at a time.
A challenging process is underway as I write involving about 20 persons discerning and visioning the next 3 – 5 years of the house of prayer. Many aspects are being discussed, and most of all, what is the vision of this ministry at this time. We began with the mission statement approved in 1994 by the former St Mary’s Province membership. That visionary document had and still has much to ground what has evolved over the years.
However, the original Vision Statement was written without any lived experience in this particular house of prayer. The question now is: what now would be the vision statement given nearly 25 years of the lived reality? In other words, we go from the lived experience of many persons throughout the years to better understanding the underlying vision, which is more often simply lived and not articulated.
In one word, what is now emerging and never expected two to three decades ago, is: community. To the extent that the contemplative life is more authentically lived both by core community and hundreds, if not thousands, of guests – community happens in so many completely unanticipated ways, never foreseen in the original founding. The communion experienced in God is the existential communion within humanity and all creation.
While the daily way of life is marked by solitude and silence, prayer and hospitality, perhaps surprisingly that which is most nurturing is adult faith community. Community of those who live here for various lengths of time, community with numerous volunteers. Community also continues to occur with people of the area, many of whom have adopted the house of prayer – and respond to many of its needs. Perhaps there is also an intensity of community that one would not normally expect from usual pastoral ministry.
Then there is ecumenical and inter-faith community. This was never foreseen in the original vision. Several Christian faith traditions now claim the house as their own. Beyond active ecumenism there is a robust relationship with non-Christian faith traditions, especially with Muslims, Jewish people, Sikhs and Hindus. For more than 10 years the house of prayer has led a local interfaith group which gathers monthly, and is actively part of Saskatchewan Multi-Faith. None of this was anticipated.
And at the heart of daily life is community with creation every single day, especially in our Qu’Appelle Valley setting … the unexpected “experience (of) the love of God … in the unfolding of the reign of God within creation” (Mission Statement of OMI Lacombe Canada, 2003). Nature is all its diversity significantly and profoundly shapes and nourishes the contemplative spirit in all who live, come and work here.
At its simplest and yet most complex, being contemplative is a gaze: gazing upon the other to which we are united by love. The elder hermit tells us: “God looks at me, and I look at God, and we are both happy.” And that shapes everything in the apostolic missionary way of life. Always surprisingly. Almost unnoticeably in everyday life. Longing for authentic communion with God, however incomplete and imperfect necessarily becomes communion with others, most especially those often viewed as the least of one’s sisters and brothers.
Kathleen Norris gives us this insight about day by day committing to doing the most ordinary tasks, year after year: “It is a paradox of human life that in worship, as in human love, it is in the routine and the everyday that we find the possibilities for the greatest transformation … what we think we are only ‘getting through’ has the power to change us.” (Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women’s Work).
There is an inherent paradox and tension in the mix of contemplative and apostolic calling within a calling: the more one tries to live in a contemplative way, so too the more intensely, even urgently, apostolic pastoral demands present themselves, and the less energy and time one has to live the contemplative life we long to live. An ever present paradox and mostly creative tension. That is a reflection for another time.
By Glenn Zimmer, OMI
