Sunday Vespers

As usual, Bede writes articulately about an experience I have shared, but haven't been able to articulate. Sunday afternoon the monastery after the guests leave is a special time. I find Sunday afternoons to have a similar feeling for me at COTM. It's one of the reasons I stay at COTM for a few hours after everyone has left--I need to feel the building relax around me. I need to know the place as quiet.

Here Bede is reflecting on the Sunday afternoon Vespers service:

Just last week I was thinking of the quality of my attention at Sunday Vespers, and it's quite an interesting thing. I'm not riveted on the meaning of the words, I haven't got the energy. Sunday Vespers is not the time for intense prayer, at least for me. It's a time for sitting in God's lap. I'm not absent from the words of the Psalms and the readings, but I'm not closely focused on them, either. The years have given me the Psalms as a part of my consciousness and they are never absent from me. But at this time I'm conscious of them pretty much in the way that I'm conscious of my bones or my toes. They are there, they are crucial, they carry me. But at this point, they aren't the center of my attention. My attention is more diffuse. I'm taking in the light, the smells, the sounds, whatever is there. (source)

I'm especially moved by his comment "The years have given me the Psalms as a part of my consciousness and they are never absent from me."

BTW, the Order is meeting in Chapter this week and a Superior will be elected on Saturday--so be sure to remember them in your prayers...

-t