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Interviewing the Abbot:
Be Still

Abbot Christopher M. Zielinksi OSB oliv.

This mornings conference was dedicated to “The Stillness of Mary”, as you read the verse from the Gospel of St. John 19:25 “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother…” you mentioned that in this single verse lies the mystery of what being a Christian today is about.  Can you elaborate a little bit more?

Abbot:  As Benedictines of the Congregation of Our Lady of Mount Olivet, we have a very particular and personal relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Therefore, although, she is very much at the center of our personal and monastic spirituality, we also see her as being the living icon for all Christians.  Her holy abandonment of accepting to conform her life to God’s Holy Will is the maximum expression of the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty.  It is because of her “fiat” that we see what love is and also discover the real truth of Dostoyevsky’s words “Beauty will save the world.” 

You speak about the stillness of Mary.  Can you say something about being still in today’s world where all is movement?

Abbot:  The stillness “in stillness” is not at all real stillness; it is death.  Like a stagnant pond that allows for no true vision because there is no life.  It is precisely when there is “stillness in movement” that the mysterious rhythm of Love pervades heaven and earth.  You see; it is precisely in our hectic and chaotic world that the beautiful truth about the stillness of Mary becomes a living icon of hope and peace for the entire world.  But we must contemplate this icon, because if we do not contemplate, we will manipulate.  We will seek out the stillness “in stillness” and not be able to see.  Because to understand you have to pay attention; you have to love.  And when you love, the very nature of love becomes the discipline of contemplation. 

Could you tell us something more about holy abandonment, perhaps with a “beautiful” and “holy” example?

Abbot:  You all know my very particular devotion for Therese of Lisieux.   She is a new Doctor of the Church and her doctrine contains also a teaching about the terrible beauty of abandonment.  She is loved by both Catholics and non-Catholics.  She teaches “…for Love to be fully satisfied, it must lower itself even unto nothingness, and transform this nothingness into fire.”   St.  Therese entered into what she called the process of “unpetalling”.  She offered up petals of self through small sacrificial deeds of victory over egotism until nothing was left: nothing but love for the Beloved.  And there in the Carmel where she offered herself like a beautiful rose, she understood the virtue of “littleness.”   She abandoned herself to the holiest of truths:  that we must be sustained by love if we are to learn what love is.  It was a way of remaining always poor and without strength…simply loving her littleness, her nothingness.  This is the way to Love, the hidden way, the silent way that leads to the mysterious “stillness in movement” of Eternal Love.

Could we call this “unpetalling” a kenotic love; and therefore, an offering of one’s self as a manifestation of the sacrificial dimension?

Abbot:  We are certain that St. Therese’ spirituality was grounded in her liturgical life.  The heart of this “process of unpetalling” finds its model in the sacrificial nature of the Mass.  Lex orandi, lex credendi.  Her theology was Pauline and thus, a parallel thought can be found in the letter to the Romans (12:1)  “Offer your bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God.  (Thus you offer him) holy worship.”

In relation to God, love to the point of self-abnegation manifests itself in the state of Christ-like humility.  In the Gospel of John, Christ, before giving himself to life-giving suffering and death, says: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13) This sacrificial erosion of selfhood is this descent that becomes the true assent to God.  And so, she can say: “No longer I…but Christ…” (Gal 2:20).

St. Therese, taking on the liturgical sacrificial dimension of the Mass as a model of sanctity, shifts the liturgy retrospectively toward the Christ-Event and transforms it into a “Gethsemane” type of prayer, rather than a merely triumphant celebration.  And so through this Holy Sacrament, Therese learned to live and experience the eternal character of the Kenosis of the Logos of God.  She could love with an unconditional love because she understood the essential nature of the Mass: its sacrificial dimension. 

Would you like to talk now about the Stillness of Mary and the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ?

Abbot:  As we walk the road to Calvary, we contemplate the meeting between Jesus and his mother.  We can imagine the tremendous sorrow and the terrible beauty of love flowing from the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—and that love flowing from the Sacred Heart of Jesus into the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  In the stillness of this earthly but everlasting movement, we will discover “the Beauty that saves the world.”  When and where can we make this discovery?  We discover it as she stands at the foot of the cross; and we see her silent and still…in the everlasting movement, because love is stronger than death!

In your conference, you touched very briefly on the Passion narrative about the striking contrast between the stillness of those who loved Jesus Christ and the ceaseless activity of His enemies.  You mentioned how timeless a teaching this is for us today.  Can you give us an example?

Abbot:  You look back on the history of the world; and again and again, you discover the relevance of this truth.  It is not the active and thoughtless who bring good to the world.  It is those whose actions spring from contemplation who become instruments of peace and bearers of true goodness.  Think deeply and love deeply, and then you will have no need of words because your suffering and your co-suffering will go straight from your own heart to the Heart of Christ. 

In fact, too often Christ is betrayed by action without thought and without prayer.  And in a world of speed and frenzied activity, a world which thinks too exclusively in terms of power, money, and sex and where everything is centered on the deadly stillness of one’s ego; only love is believable, only love is beautiful.  “Beauty will save the world.”

What can you say about the pain of Christ and the Sorrow of God that Mary contemplated as she stood at the foot of the Cross?

Here we are entering the very mystery of Mary’s great assent, “be it done unto me according to thy word.”  She is abandoning herself to the mystery of love.  It is not that Mary does not want to know:  she wants to know in a different and purer way.  It is like seeing with one’s ears and listening with one’s eyes; the terrible beauty of love that simply loves to love and without “why”.  This, she desires to know by loving the Love that is not loved.  And to achieve this, she must travel the road to Calvary and stand by the cross of Jesus.  There she learns the discipline of contemplation.  In the stillness, she learns to wait in openhearted receptivity.  She assents to humility, poverty of spirit, even unto nothingness, through the profoundest exercise of patience, simplicity, and perhaps above all, trust----trust so objectless and pure that there was no distinction between her love and the divine love.