Daily Reflection - Seminary Pilgrimage to St. John The Compassionate: Day 4
Friday April 12, 2013
By Seminarian Nicholas Mihaly
Fr. Deacon Pawel and I stayed up quite after our bedtime
last night and talked about many things pertaining to our lives, the mission,
the diocese and the church at large. One of the things that stuck out in my
mind was something that he had mentioned to me about the chapel services. He
had told me that he noticed that when we, the seminarians, were chanting psalms
or prayers during services in the chapel that we “project our voices.” He specifically
asked me to tell my brother seminarians not to project our voices so loudly and
to pray the psalms and prayers in a quiet and solemn voice. When I asked what
the reasoning behind it was, he told me that it was to ensure that there was a
prayerful stillness throughout the mission.
As I was walking back to the Lived Theology School house to
prepare for bed, I was thinking about the stark contrast that I saw in the
loud, busy, mission dining hall and the quiet, prayerful stillness that Deacon
Pawel had asked from us and what I had seen during the services in the mission
chapel. How could you be still and quiet in the chapel and be loud in the
dining hall, aren’t they two polar opposites? My answer came to me early this
morning on my trek through the miserable Toronto weather to the mission. I was
literally blown from the Lived Theology School house to the steps of the
mission with wind and rain pounding me in the face, but I paused for just a
second at the door. While I could hear the wind blowing around me, I could not
feel it hitting me, I could not feel the raindrops on my head.
It was then that I realized why people come here. People who
are hurting, broken, despairing and feeling a sense of worthlessness come here
to feel community, to feel like a person, to be loved. They come in to escape
the storms of their lives and get some shelter in the form of people. They come
here because it is calm, a calm that comes from the leadership of the mission
being still, quiet and prayerful.
St. Seraphim of Sarov says, “acquire the Holy Spirit and a
thousand around you will be saved.” How can we acquire the Holy Spirit? By
being still, by being quiet, by being prayerful. Not by jumping around and
being loud. Once you are quiet and prayerful and can acquire, or at least begin
to acquire, the Holy Spirit, then you can begin to help others. I see this very
clearly portrayed by Fr. Roberto. A quiet, simple, humble man who is always
praying. He is most quiet in the chapel, and when he is in the mission hall with
the people, he is still quiet, but he exudes joy-a smile, laughing, quiet,
contagious joy. The sounds I hear in the mission dining hall is the comforting
joy of the Holy Spirit spreading from one person to the next, causing it to
naturally get louder.
This afternoon I had the chance to talk to a few of the
people who have some pretty big storms in their lives-alcoholism, drug abuse,
joblessness, homelessness-they do not go to the mission for immediate healing,
they know all too well that it is not going to come. Rather, they come in for a
brief respite from their wind and rain and snow, to get warm by the fire and
feel loved and wanted by somebody. Indeed, this is what we are all
crying out for, to be loved! And it is through a prayerful, still life that we
realize that God’s uncontainable love pours out over everyone and through
everyone because we are all human beings made in His image and likeness.
