Vacation on the Moon

Learning how to take a vocation vacation

07/16/2022

MT 12:14-21 The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place. Many people followed him, and he cured them all, but he warned them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through Isaiah the prophet: Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight; I shall place my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope.

Every summer I remind Catholics: “Do not take a vacation from your vocation!” That means be sure to go to mass on Sunday, even if you are on vacation on the beach, or in the mountains, or on the moon! No vacation from your vocation. But nine years ago, I took a “vocation vacation” for three months, my vacation was all about my vocation. That is, I spent three months discerning whether God was calling me to be a Carmelite friar.

Since today is the memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and the feast day of the Carmelite Order, perhaps it is apropos to share a little of my vocation vacation. I had not gone to the beach or to the mountains but spiritually-speaking I had “gone to the moon”. The moon is a beautiful symbol of Mother Mary, who receives all her light from Jesus, her Son. She shines because of Jesus, and so, too, do the Carmelites who imitate her, and so too should all Christians.

I spent my vocation vacation in Dallas, Texas, at Little Flower Church, a parish run by Carmelite friars in a poor part of Dallas. The church parking lot was surrounded by a 10-foot tall fence with an electronic sliding gate. That gives you an idea of the neighborhood. The parish ran a small school that struggled to stay open, like lots of Catholic schools these days. But my purpose was not to be a parish priest and get involved in church activities, but rather to learn the art of contemplative prayer.

That is prayer of silence, stillness and solitude. It is a very powerful kind of prayer because it does not involve a lot of doing but a lot of being. Contemplation is not about how many rosaries you pray or how many novenas you can crank out or how many Masses you attend, or retreats you go to. All those things are good, but contemplation is different. It is not about what we do, but about what God does.

And our job in prayer is to sit still long enough for the Divine Physician to do his healing and holiness work. That is why surgeons put people into deep sleep with anesthesia before they operate. They need us to lie still, almost asleep, for them to do their work and so we do not interfere. In contemplation, God heals us, and we don’t know how he does it, and we don’t even know we are sick and in need of radical surgery.

Would you like to hear a little about how and why the Carmelites were founded as a religious order? Most people think they started in the mid-1200’s when a group of Crusaders and pilgrims to the Holy Land decided to hang up their swords and live like hermits on Mt. Carmel in northwestern Israel, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. And that is true for the most part.

But Carmelites know that their real founder was the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah battles 450 false prophets who worshipped Baal on Mt. Carmel. After Elijah defeats them, he puts all the false prophets to the sword and kills them. Carmelites follow in the footsteps of Elijah, but they take the sword of the Spirit to slay the false prophets in their own hearts. The really dangerous prophets are inside of us, not outside.

So, these Crusaders and pilgrims in the 13th century had put down one sword but picked up another and plunged it into their hearts. And that is what I was attempting to do in my vocation vacation in Dallas for three months. I tried to learn contemplative prayer so God could do radical surgery on me, and cut me open, and do open heart surgery with the sword of the Spirit, and heal me of ills I don’t even know I suffer from.

My friends, would you like to take a little vocation vacation yourself? You don’t have to travel to the Holy Land and sit atop Mt. Carmel like Elijah, or spend three months in Dallas like me. Just go to your room, close your door, and close your eyes, and try to sit still and don’t interfere with the work of the divine Physician.

Perhaps these words of St. John of the Cross, the great Carmelite mystic, will inspire you: “To reach satisfaction in all, desire the possession of nothing. To arrive at being all, desire to be nothing. To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing.” St. John continued: “To enjoy what you have not, you must go by a way in which you know not. To come to the knowledge you have not, you must go by a way in which you know not. To come to the possession you have not, you must go by a way in which you possess not. To come to be what you are not, you must go by a way in which you are not.”

The next time you want to take a vacation, I suggest you not go to the beach, or to the mountains, but rather go to the moon! And the fastest way to the moon is by going to your room, “close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you” (Mt 6:6).

Praised be Jesus Christ!