Modern man needs these things more than the hermits of old.
When I first arrived in Combermere in late 1972, the reality of the poustinia was already very much a part of the community’s life at Madonna House.
Within a month, I was heading up to Marian Meadows on a bitterly cold December morning for my first experience of spending 24 hours in the desert in this way. Appropriately, my “word” on coming out of the cabin and returning to the community was silence.
Within three years, the book Poustinia was published. It enjoyed an unprecedented positive reception and soon was being translated into other languages, becoming a modern spiritual classic.
What was it about the book that was so attractive and helpful to so many? Of course, there is the matter of the style of the book itself: much, if not all of it was based on talks Catherine Doherty had given at various times, so it had the fresh, simple style of someone who knows her topic by experience and has the ability to bring the message home to an audience.
But at the heart of it was a prophetic word that our world of that time (and of this time) desperately needed to hear, and that word was silence. If there is anything the book Poustinia makes clear, it is that we can never really know God the way he wants to be known, or hear his word to us in the depths of our hearts, without a measure of silence.
And this book is all about what goes into cultivating a wellspring of silence within. This interior peace and stillness are receptive to the word of God which, in turn, can become incarnate as it is implemented in a person’s life.
For Catherine, the word of God is a dynamic reality, ever seeking the salvation of human beings, so that receptivity to it is or can be a matter of life and death. Of course, we seldom, if ever, think of retreat time as determinative of such vast consequences.
Here is an example from the book itself: “It seems strange to say, but what can help modern man find the answers to his own mystery and the mystery of him in whose image he is created is silence and solitude—in a word, the desert. Modern man needs these things more than the hermits of old.
“If we are to witness to Christ in today’s marketplace, where there are constant demands on our whole person, we need silence. If we are to be always available, not only physically but by empathy, sympathy, friendship, understanding, and boundless caritas, we need silence. To be able to give joyous, unflagging hospitality, not only of house and food but of the mind, heart, body, and soul, we need silence” (p. 4). *
But this silence that is so foundational in one’s living relationship with God is presented not as something only obtainable by those who actually live in solitude, but by anyone.
In this, Catherine agrees with the opinion of Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov, who in books like The Struggle with God makes clear that the uncompromising depths of commitment to Christ typical of the monks of the early centuries of the Church, now must and can be lived by those living in the world.
Poustinia presents a very realistic picture of the purification necessary to attain true interior stillness. The section entitled “Talks to Poustiniki” spells out, in a way remarkably comprehensible to the modern reader, the self-emptying that is necessary if one is to become an instrument of God’s grace.
In fact, the theme of self-emptying, in Greek kenosis, is what has always struck me as central to Catherine’s teaching on the poustinia and on Christian discipleship in general.
She wrote about it this way:
“The desert is an altar on which, moment by moment, you bring the offering of yourself. For self-will is the obstacle that eternally stands between me and God. We decide that we are going to do such and such a thing. God comes along and says, ‘No, do this.’ It’s a matter of doing what he wants, not because we are afraid of him, or afraid of dying, but because we are in love with him. …The poustinik must finally understand that he has to become as empty as God became for him” (p. 112).
Of course, we all know that such a degree of self-emptying is impossible for us, and yet Catherine, also knowing this, insists that we must keep Christ and his self-offering ever before our eyes. This, simply because it is so vital that not our words or reflections be offered, but so that Christ’s own words be heard through us in some way.
“The role of the poustinik is allowing himself to quite literally ‘shut up,’ to become silent. This means giving up your words. Folding the wings of your intellect means giving up the birthplace, the origin, the source of your own words. What for? To become merely dumb, without any speech at all? No. It’s in order that the Word might take over your words” (p. 115).
To the extent that this does happen we can be true instruments of Christ in the lives of others. Of course, we never know to what extent we are actually surrendered in this way. The layers of our resistance go on and on in us, and we are in constant need of God’s purifying fire, cleansing us of ourselves.
“Kenosis leads one to the reality of the Incarnation. Why enter into this kenosis? In order, as St. Paul says, to make up what is wanting in the Church and to share in the sufferings of Christ. This is the whole aim and goal of kenosis. This is where it leads.
It is not done for any selfish reason. It not even done to be one with God. We must go beyond such motivation, and take upon ourselves the pain of humanity. Unless we can do that, we will not be able to place the gift of our kenosis into the hands of God. Kenosis, like everything else, is primarily for the other” (p. 120).
“Every Christian should be leading a kenotic way of life. One cannot enter into the mystery of the Incarnation without first doing a hidden stripping of self. Then follows a lifetime of continued stripping, of emptying oneself and becoming a nonentity. You remain free, easy, direct, but especially simple. Learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart (Mt 11:29). Simplicity is the very essence of kenosis” (p. 121).
As the years go by, the powerful truth of these words penetrates deeper and deeper. One never seems to have “arrived” at the goal of self-emptying, but the compelling nature of this teaching continues to beckon, like a call from the Lord himself. So, one perseveres in hope that these words might one day be true of oneself:
“Now, it is not I doing these things, it is Christ within me. My words are not my own. They are the echoes of God’s voice that coms to me out of his silence. Now I know how to catch fire from his words and become a fire myself, shedding his sparks over the face of the earth. Now I can say that it is not I who live, but Christ lives in me” (p. 186).
*From Poustinia, by Catherine Doherty, 2000, available from MH Publications.
