Mickail Vrubel. Angel with Censer and Candle.
Sketch for Vladimir cathedral (Kiev) Fresco 1887.
The Angel of Retreat
by Anselm Grün
During the fourth century a great movement of retreat developed in the Church. They were monks who were sick of the turmoil of the world and who were disappointed of the way the Church was becoming more and more gentrified. They went on a retreat in the desert to live as recluses, to face their own truths in separation from the world and to follow their deepest desire of experiencing God in prayer and becoming one with Him. The surprising thing is that it was those who had gone on retreat from the world who had an amazingly potent effect on the world. Droves of pilgrims and supplicants took the road from Rome and Athens to the deserts of Egypt to ask the monks for guidance. Obviously they felt that those men, who had the courage to retreat from the world in order to face the truth of God, knew more about people than the philosophers and physicians who were entrenched in the turmoil of the world.
Now and again probably everyone needs a retreat from the turmoil and hectic of everyday life. Or we would lose ourselves in the hubbub. We are merely functioning, but we are not truly alive any more, we are not really ourselves any more. If you go on a retreat to a quiet place, it can happen that you take the turmoil of your world with you, that it is not at all comfortable to be confronted with everything that boils up inside you. And it may take some time until you have freed yourself from the problems of your everyday life. Only then the inner retreat begins. You withdraw, you step back from what you are doing, what keeps you preoccupied. You get in touch with yourself, you discover what moves you in the depth of you heart. You perceive your deeper truth. Sometimes this is painful. But if you behold it and you offer it to God Who accepts you just the way you are, then you will experience at the same time inner freedom and joy. You feel your uniqueness and exceptionality. You feel that you are precious and relevant because you can leave a trace in this world that only you can create. And perhaps you will discover then that there is a source inside you that is effervescent inside you and will never run dry because it is a source of divine origin, the source of the Holy Spirit.
The Angel of Retreat wants to encourage you, too, to withdraw at times from your spouse or friend. If you are with someone all the time, you will soon feel constricted. Then you are sticking together. And this is not beneficial for either of you. You need the space of freedom between you so that each of you can breathe and contribute their uniqueness to the relationship. Sometimes you may be hear reproaches from your wife or your husband if you go on a retreat like that. But I know many who have tried this. They have realized that this has been also beneficial for their togetherness. As you will be wholly yourself again because of it. It is like fitness program that brings you back in contact with your own energies. Then being together gets lively again, you have the imagination and the impetus again to try something new with your spouse or your friend, to be responsive to them again. If you go on a retreat, you will feel that you are not only defined by your partner, but that you need a more profound reason of existence, your own source, God, Who created you as a unique and exceptional person. Therefore I wish that the Angel of Retreat may show you when it’s time for you to withdraw. And I wish that you may then experience that you are not alone, but that the Angel of Retreat is with you and will reveal new horizons in your life for you.
© by Anselm Grün, 50 Engel für das Jahr, 1997;
translation by JunoMagic.
Song for December 10:
Hagia Sophia
by Hans-Jürgen Hufeisen,
album “Das Engelskonzert” (“Concert of Angels”)
I have the habit, when we go on vacation, of just sitting and drinking coffee. When we went on the cruise a year and a half ago, our cabin faced backwards, and I sat in the balcony watching the wake, and were we’d been, which was just open ocean and a clean horizon, all day. Everyone thought I was wasting the cruise, becase I didn’t want to sit at a noisy pool and roast in the sun with them. It was a week of not using the computer all day, not watching TV, and mostly thinking and reflecting. When I returned, I had amazing energy and clarity, and dove into developing the second generation of my web site software. I had a period of great accomplishment. I think I need that again, I need quiet time. I get far too little quiet, and the pace from Thanksgiving through New Years wears on me.
There is so much to do and so few of me.
mk