DEEP LISTENING
A month after Pierre Fisette had left the Oblates and had gone to the Carthusian monastery, Eugene wrote to his former provincial in Canada:
The day before yesterday I received a letter from the Prior informing me that he is no longer there. Today I receive one from him giving the motive of his flight. So accustomed to be treated kindly by us, he could not endure the rudeness of this Prior who, on seeing him a second time, said: What! You are still here! I thought you had gone! He turned on his heel and left for good.
Pierre, still convinced of his vocation to contemplative life moves to the Trappists. Again, Eugene wrote him a letter of recommendation.
This poor child writes to say that he is on his way to the Trappists of Aiguebelles. May God accompany him since these journeys are not without great danger for him. I am immediately going to write a letter of recommendation to the Father Abbot.
Letter to Fr Bruno Guigues in Canada, 27 September 1847, EO I n 89
Father Fisette had finally found his vocation and persevered in the Trappists eventually being sent to establish the Trappist monastery of Staouéli in Algeria where he died in 1878
REFLECTION
God of silence and God of all sound, help me to listen.
Help me to do the deep listening to the sounds of my soul,
waiting to hear your soft voice calling me deeper into you.
Give me attentive ears that begin to separate the noise from the sounds that are you;
you who have been speaking to me and through me my whole life, for so long that you can seem like background noise.
Today help me hear you anew.
Author Unknown (https://www.xavier.edu/jesuitresource/online-resources/prayer-index/discernment)
This entry was posted in
WRITINGS. Bookmark the
permalink.
Father Fisette, having experienced loving community with the Oblates, would not settle for less. God was indeed calling him to a contemplative life – but not just any religious family and so he dared to persevere and his heart found it’s home with the Trappists.
Eugene de Mazenod’s journey as a minor member of the nobility, refugee in exile, ordinary ‘Citizen Mazenod’, priest, Founder, Bishop and Senator of France – father and saint. His journey was not to advance his career and state of life, but rather to enter more deeply within the heart of our crucified Saviour and to share his experience of God.
I remember one day sitting before the tabernacle in my parish church, and telling God that I was not content with just sitting before Him, my Beloved. No, I wanted more, I wanted to sit in His embrace, and after some time that I wanted to become one with Him.
“Many the gifts, many the works… One in the Lord – Of all. One bread, one body, one Lord of all. One cup of blessing which we bless. And we, though many, throughout the Earth: we are one body in this one Lord” My heart joins John Michael Talbot in song.
Just as Fisette carried with him the gifts he had received in his time with the Oblates, we too carry within us the many gifts we have received along the way. They become a part of us which we then share them with others.
Within the heart of God we join in the prayer that has been shared with us:
“God of silence and God of all sound, help me to listen. Help me to do the deep listening to the sounds of my soul, waiting to hear your soft voice calling me deeper into you. Give me attentive ears that begin to separate the noise from the sounds that are you; you who have been speaking to me and through me my whole life, for so long that you can seem like background noise. Today help me hear you anew.”