Our apostolic ministry often takes us into schools and something I enjoy sharing with children and teenagers is that we do not get to use the internet in our rooms in the Convent. In fact, the most advanced piece of technology contained within is probably our alarm clocks. This can be strange at first for those of us used to watching a bit of Netflix before bedtime, listening to our favourite album on Spotify or using one’s phone as an alarm, but it is a wonderful practice. I always encourage people to make a space for prayer in one’s room, even if it is just a crucifix. To rise in the morning with a prayer, even if it is brief, to fall asleep to prayer. To have the Bible or some spiritual book next to our bed. These practices can all help to consolidate one’s relationship with God, as simple as they are.
These practices in our community are rooted in the Rule of St Albert, followed by all members of the Carmelite family though adapted to their particular circumstances. St Albert, writing for the hermits on Mount Carmel, instructs them to have separate cells and that “Each of you is to stay in his own cell or nearby, pondering the Lord’s law day and night and keeping watch at his prayers unless attending to some other duty.” The underlying message here is that just as a husband and wife need time alone with one another, so all of us need that time with God who loves us and knows us more than even a spouse ever could. This could just be a few minutes snatched amidst the clamour of family life. For those of us who live alone with space in the day for solitude, there is a greater responsibility to take time with God. When he is given the priority, all the other aspects of our life fall into place.
We can also take this understanding of the cell in a broader, more metaphorical sense as outlined by Kees Waaijman in his book The Mystical Space of Carmel. He cites M. Buber writing “where we are standing, where we have been put – precisely there and nowhere else the treasure can be found. My immediate surroundings, which I experience as my natural habitat… that which I encounter day after day – here lies my true task and here awaits me the fulfilment of the existence that lies open before me.”
What an invitation, but also what a challenge! To ‘keep watch’ in our daily circumstances, the place in life God has allocated us. To see our ‘cell’ as being also our places of work, our homes, our respective vocations, and in each of these different contexts to ‘keep watch,’ for where in those places God is hidden, waiting to be found.
